


Hold Me Close

by mariuspunmercy



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, I did, Mortal!AU, Why??, and every chapter is like 10k words if you like long stories, i don't really know but like, i mortalify everything
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-03
Updated: 2019-01-06
Packaged: 2019-07-06 07:44:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 22,625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15881637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mariuspunmercy/pseuds/mariuspunmercy
Summary: Percy Jackson was not a normal kid, as he had ADHD and dyslexia, and he even goes to a special tutoring camp for it.First, his best friend is kidnapped and he has to travel to find her.Then, his friend's brother had left. And he was at the mercy of a dangerous gang.After, Percy's own innocence is gone when everyone has fled New York and it's up to he and his friends to save their city.How will Percy win, if he is an average mortal fighting alone side his best friends?





	1. The Lightning Thief

**Author's Note:**

> IMPORTANT - THE WARNING IS NOT PRESENT UNTIL THE THIRD CHAPTER

Look, I didn't want to be a half blood.

If you're reading this because you think you might be one, my advice is: close this story right now.

Believe what-ever lie your mom or dad told you about your birth, and try to lead a normal life. Being a half-blood is dangerous. It's scary.

Most of the time, it gets you killed in painful, nasty ways.If you're a normal kid, reading this because you think it's fiction, great.

Read on.

I envy you for beingable to believe that none of this ever happened.

But if you recognize yourself in these pages-if you feel something stirring inside-stop readingimmediately. You might be one of us.

And once you know that, it's only a matter of time before theysense it too, and they'll come for you.

Don't say I didn't warn you.

My name is Percy Jackson and I am twelve years old.

_________________________________________

Currently, Percy was on the school bus, trying not to murder anybody within a ten mile radius. It doesn't matter if all they did was breathe.

Until a few months ago, Percy was a boarding student at Yancy Academy, a privateschool for troubled kids in upstate New York.

Is he a troubled kid?

Yeah. You could say

Percy could start at any point in his life to tell anybody that he was a troubled kid, but it went bad during his sixth grade field trip to the museum.

Yes, Percy considered it absolute child cruelty. Not as bad the multi-arobics fitness gram pacer test. That's absolutely awful.

Most Yancy Academy field trips were torture. But Mr.Brunner was leading the trip, so that had to mean that all hope wasn't lost.

Percy was really hoping for this trip to go good. Mr.Brunner was there. Grover Underwood would be there. This might be okay.

Boy, was he wrong.

All throughout the bus ride, Nancy Bobofit had Percy and Grover dodging peanut butter and jelly sandwiches aimed at the head.

"I'm going to kill her." Percy muttered as a sandwich hit Grover in the head.

"It's okay." Grover reassured. "I like peanut butter."

As Percy had to dodge another school lunch, he was about to get out of his seat when Grover had to push him back in.

"You're already on probation, man. You'll get blamed for anything else bad that happens." Grover pushed his glasses on his nose.

Looking back at it, Percy wished he'd taken Nancy Bobofit then and there. It would've spared him the mess he was going to get himself into.

Mr.Brunner wheeled himself to the front of the bus. Mr.Brunner needs to have a wheelchair because he's disabled and yeah he needs it.

Mrs.Dodds, the other teacher on this trip, was straight up mean. She was an eighty something year old that probably hates everything.

"Okay kids. Let's go." Mr.Brunner announced.

_________________________________________

"The Greek gods," Mr.Brunner started. "Were, obviously, a really big part of Greece. Can you guys name any big gods?"

Grover raised his hand. "Poseidon."

"Good, Grover." Mr.Brunner praised. "Now, does anybody know about the Titans?"

Percy stayed silent. He knew nothing about the Greek gods. His mom would talk about Poesidon and Zeus a lot, but they're common.

You don't have to be an expert on Greek mythology to know about the most common three gods. Everyone knows who they are.

"The guys are dead anyways." Nancy whispered to her other kleptomaniac friends. "Do we really need to learn about these guys?"

"People these modern days," Mr.Brunner had heard what Nancy said. "Still name their kids after the gods. Look at your fellow classmate."

Mrs.Dodd's pointed to a statue. "Percy, would you like to explain who you see here?"

Percy looked the statue that Mrs.Dodds was pointing at. It was a statue of Perseus, Zeus's son. "Perseus, Zeus's son."

Mrs.Dodds narrowed her wrinkly eyes at Percy. "Very good, Jackson."

"Is Mrs.Dodds flirting with Percy? Isn't that illegal? Is Percy sleeping with the old bag?" Nancy continued to make her stupid rumors.

Whatever gets that girl attention. That's all it ever is with Nancy. She obviously doesn't get attention at home so she demands it at school.

Dear Nancy's parents, for our sake, please pay attention to your kid. No one wants to deal with them so please love your kid.

"Shut the hell up Jancy Bobcat." It was a stupid insult that I had made up to get on Nancy's nerves, and it had been working for a while.

"Perseus Jackson!" Mrs.Dodds yelled. "Meet me in five minutes."

Percy winced at the mention of his real name. He hated being called Perseus, as it had seemed to be a name for someone who was older.

Nancy laughed. "Sorry." She didn't mean it. Nancy never meant anything nice she said unless she was talking to a teacher maybe.

As Percy walked over to Mrs.Dodds, he noticed that Grover and Mr.Brunner were exchanging looks. When they agree it's not a good sign.

The only other time that Grover and Mr.Brunner agreed on something it ended up with Percy getting put on probation.

"Does this have to do with..." Grover was muttering to the disabled teacher.

"I believe so. Don't say anything yet. I will let you know when it's time to tell the others." Mr.Brunner was failing at being quiet.

Mrs.Dodds led Percy to a room where their was construction. "Now, honey, I've noticed that you've been being mean to other students."

"She started it." Percy accused. "Nancy was saying really disgusting things that shouldn't have been said. Shd should be the one getting in trouble."

"No, honey." Mrs.Dodds put her hands behind her back. "I think it's time for that stupid camp to die."

Mrs.Dodds took a knife from behind her back. "Come here honey."

"Nope!" Percy yelled.

Grover and Mr.Brunner ran into the room, both with panicked looks plastered on their faces. Mr.Brunner had a knife in his hand.

"Percy, duck!" Grover yelled.

Percy did as instructed, and he ducked. As he looked back to Mrs.Dodds five seconds later, she had a throwing knife in her back.

"What the fuc..." but at the doorway, Percy saw that neither Grover or Mr.Brunner were there.

_________________________________________

The end of the school year could not have come any quicker.

Percy was still freaked out about the whole Mrs.Dodds things. It was a throwing knife in her back. Who could have thrown that?

That happened back during Christmas time. It's June now, and for some reason Percy is getting scared. It was a scary thing.

Percy had already gotten the letter saying that he was expelled from Yancy and would not be allowed back next year, which is the sixth time this has happened.

"Wanna come with me, Grover?" Percy asked as they got into the bus that would take them to their houses.

Grover shook his head. "I've got my place to go to."

That was disappointing. Percy wishes that Grover could finally meet the famous Sally Jackson. Then again, now he doesn't have to meet Smelly Gabe.

_________________________________________

Sally Jackson was the best thing that has ever been brought into the world.

At least, that's how it went in Percy's mind. Sally was probably the best mom that anyone could ask for. Percy wouldn't trade her for anything.

Naturally, she got stuck marrying a greasy little nobody who can't do much except play poker and drink like there's no tomorrow.

That's why when Percy got home he tried his hardest to avoid Smelly Gaby Ugliano by running to his room as fast as he could.

That didn't work. "Hey, kid. You obviously have a little change. Give it to me now before I knock you out." Gabe called out as he was playing poker.

Percy didn't feel like getting punched, so he gave Gabe the rest of his change. It was a two dollar bill, and probably wasn't worth the trouble.

"Leave the kid alone, Gabe." Gabe's friend, Eddie said.

"Don't tell me what to do." Gabe yelled as he raised his hand at Percy.

"Don't touch him." The door opened and standing in the door was Sally Jackson. "Do not lay a finger on my son or I will call the cops."

"Mom." Percy almost cried when he saw his mom. He hasn't seen her since last year. She's had to deal with Smelly Gabe on her own.

Percy ran up to his mom and hugged her as much as he can. Sally smelled like the candy store she worked at, with her blue uniform on.

"Hey, Percy, we needed to go somewhere and we have to go soon." Sally explained, a tone of urgency evident in her voice.

"You're not going anywhere, Sally. You have to make me and my friends bean dip." Gabe ordered.

"I'll be back. This is going to take maybe an hour or two-"

"You think that I'm gonna go two hours without bean dip?" Gabe yelled. "You are nuts, lady. Go make it right now."

"Percy, c'mon." Sally started leading Percy out of the room. "Listen, we need to find Grover."

That wasn't hard when Grover came running in the hallway. "I'm so sorry I'm late. I kind of got lost."

"Car, now." Sally and Grover started running down the hallway, so Percy had no choice but to follow his mom and his best friend.

_________________________________________

"Hey, can somebody please explain what we're doing?" Percy asked.

"Sorry, dude." Grover cocked his head. "I get, that you're really confused right now, but it'll make sense. It made sense to me."

Percy was hating this.

He hated being in the dark about this. Why should Grover and his mom be all secretive? There's no reason for them to be.

"Grover, if-" Sally started whispering. Percy wasn't able to hear what they were saying. This is making absolutely no sense.

"Why do you guys have to be so secretive?" Percy was getting really frustrated. "Can someone please explain what the- what's happening?"

"Look, I'm going to let maybe Chiron explain this." Sally explained. "They know more about this whole thing then I ever could."

"Sally, watch out!" Grover yelled.

Percy couldn't see, but the car was being flipped over before he knew it. He slammed his head against the driver seat.

"It's the Minotaur!" Grover yelled. "Percy, get out of the car!"

Percy got out of the car as quick as he could. His mom and Grover quickly got out soon after him. The three started running.

That's when Percy turned around and saw that spikes were on the ground where the car was. A man was towering over the car. .

"What's the Minotaur?" Percy asked as they started running.

"It's part of a gang. The Minotaur goes out and kidnaps people to take hostage or for a ransom." Grover was picking up the pace.

"Gang?" Percy yelled. Grover couldn't really run that well during mile day, but right now Percy was having a difficult time keeping up.

"Yes yes. Now, hurry. We have to get to Camp, aka a safe place for kids who are ADHD and Dyslexic like you but also tangled with the gang."

"I've never even met a gang member how can I possibly be tangled with them?" At the moment, Grover was making absolutely no sense.

"Percy, this has to do with your dad." Grover stopped running and collapsed.

"Wait no what the hell. Mom..." Percy had barley realized that she wasn't running with them.

"Surprise." A husky voice said behind him. The man had a knife in his hand aimed at Percy's head. "I'll make this quick."

When the man was about to strike, Percy turned the knife around so it ended up stabbing the man instead. The man dropped to the floor.

"Mom?" Percy's broken voice called out for his mom. "I'm scared, mom. I don't know what I just did but it's really scary. Where are you?"

Percy ended up hauling Grover up a hill where he saw a house. Probably not the best choice to drag his best friend to a sketchy house.

He knocked, and two people answered the door. Both blondes. One guy and a girl. The guy had more of a sandy blond while the girl was more lemony.

"He's the one." The girl said. "He must be."

This girl looks like a princess. Percy thought before his vision turned black.

_________________________________________

Percy woke up with blond hair in his face.

"He's up." The blond girl announced. "Do you wanna get Chiron or should I?"

"I'll go." The blond guy told her. "I think it would be better if someone his age explained this to him I'll go get Chiron. I'll look for Grover while I'm at it.

The girl watched the guy leave, and then she turned back to Percy. "You drool when you sleep."

"What?"

"What? Anyways, what's your name? I'll go first if you don't want to tell me."

Percy had no idea what was happening. "I'm Percy. Jackson."

The girl held out her hand. "Annabeth. Chase. Follow me."

They both got up. "This is Camp Half-Blood. It's not really a camp, though. It's a tutoring program for kids who've dealt with The Titans." Annabeth explained.

"The Titans?" Percy asked.

"It's a gang. They target kids from here. No one knows why. It's a big deal, because they're really powerful and could easily kill you and me."

"Why don't you just leave it alone, then?"

"Do you wanna die?"

Percy shook his head. "Nope."

Annabeth smirked. "That's what I thought. So we're trained here to fight the gang if there's ever an attack. We're not allowed to leave here without permission either."

Maybe Percy shouldn't have glossed over the fact that he can't leave, but he did. "Who was the other guy? The blond one?"

"That's Luke." Annabeth blushed. "He's nineteen and has been here as long as I have. Me, Luke and Thalia all arrived at the same time."

"How old are you?" Creepy question, Percy. "I'm twelve, by the way."

"I'm the same age as you."

Percy was about to ask about Thalia when someone went, "Well, a newbie."

"Leave, Clarisse." Annabeth demanded.

The girl, who Percy is guessing is Clarisse, was big and buff with vibrant blue eyes and a spear at her side. Why does this girl need a spear?

"No thanks, Princess." Clarisse spat.

"I'm not your Princess."

"I'll show the newbie a lesson during Capture the Flag. Ten minutes, Princess. Hope to see you there so I can kick your a-"

Percy interrupted Clarisse. "Don't call me anything. Don't call Annabeth anything. Go, and we'll see you in ten minutes for whatever you were saying."

Clarisse faked a smile. "This is what happened because Luke rejected you? I'll see you in ten minutes, like the newbie said." She left.

"Let's go down to the forest." Annabeth grabbed Percy's wrist, making the two pre-teens blush. "I think I want you on my team for Capture the Flag anyways."

_________________________________________

Annabeth explained loosely what Capture the Flag is.

Basically, it's a game where every kid is given a weapon. No maiming on purpose and especially no killing. That was a big rule.

"Hey, I'm Luke." Said somebody behind Percy, making him jump. "Sorry, didn't mean to scare you. How's your first day?"

Oh, so this is Luke.

"First day is okay. I have no idea what's happening and I really want to know what happened to my mom." Percy almost joked.

Luke was about to say something but he got cut off. "You guys know the rules, now begin."

"See ya. Good luck and avoid Clarisse." Luke smiled at ran off.

"Wait..." But Luke was gone. "I have no idea what I'm doing." Percy was exhausted, and all he wanted to do was see his mom.

"Look, the newbie." Clarisse came out of the woods with a pointy silver spear in her hand. "I think that I'm gonna teach you a lesson."

"But it's summer." Percy whined.

"Blodnie can capture your heart but I'm gonna capture the flag." Clarisse taunted.

Clarisse had no one with her, so no one saw the stupidest thing that Percy had done that year.

And that was saying something.

Percy grabbed the spear that Clarisse had and forced it out of her hands. Great, now Clarisse was unarmed and Percy had both of the weapons.

But all Clarisse did was laugh. "You really think that that's enough to stop me?" She laughed again. "Wow, you newbies are more stupid than I originally thought."

Percy noticed that Clarisse had no other weapon, and she was spewing random words in hope that Percy would yield or go to a fist to fist combat.

And Percy learned from Yancy Academy to never start a fist fight unless the person you wish to fight throws the first punch. It's really a simple rule.

Cheering flooded Percy's ears as Clarisse threw a punch at his face. Were they cheering Clarisse on? Or was something more important happening?

Turns out, the second option was right. Luke jumped off of a rock and had a red flag. Everyone with blue feathery helmets were cheering alongside Luke.

That moment ended quickly when a man in a wheelchair rolled up with a projector. Percy quickly realized that the wheelchair guy was, "Mr.Brunner?"

Mr.Brunner shushed him and pressed a button on the projector. "Hey guys." The projector played on a tree. The person on the projector had green eyes and black hair.

"He has the same hair and eyes as you." Annabeth stood next to him. When she mentioned eyes, Percy looked at her eyes and noticed that they were grey.

"Hello, I'm Poseidon and I claim Perseus Jackson." Projector man announced. "I want him to become a tutor and tutor others, as he is my son."

Hold up a second.

Son.

Percy's mom always told him that his dad had died at sea while she was still pregnant with Percy. That his dad was never able to meet him.

Projector man locked eyes with Percy. "Goodbye, son."

The projector shut off.

_________________________________________

Life was already hard.

It became harder when Percy learned that The Lightning Bolt had been stolen. It's basically a hard drive with super important information.

"Yeah and they think that you stole it." Annabeth was explaining. "I learned this all from Luke, which is super crazy."

"Why would I steal a hard drive?" Percy asked. "I always lose those things I don't know why people would think that I stole it."

"Now that your dad has claimed you as his, Zeus, your uncle, thinks that you stole the drive after it went missing last winter."

Blond hair flashed in front of Percy. "Look, Chi-Mr.Brunner is probably going to send you out on a mission to go get it back."

"Hey, Luke." Annabeth greeted, putting a strand of her hair behind her ear. "By any chance you haven't seen Grover?"

"I'm right here buddies." Grover walked over to the trio. "By the way, Chi-" he glanced at Annabeth. "Are we supposed to tell him?"

Luke shrugged. "A gang has been trying to overthrow us for several years. Now, becuase of your dad's relation to the gang, you're tangled with them too."

"What?" Percy asked.

"What?"

"I believe that Annabeth has already explained this all to you." Percy turned to see who talked.

"Mr.Brunner?" Percy squinted to make sure he was seeing correctly. "Mr.Brunner!" He ran up to his old teacher.

"I'm sorry, but you need to leave. And call me by my real name, Chiron." Mr.Brunner explained. "You have to find The Lightning Bolt."

"I don't want to do that though." Percy complained in a whiny five year old voice. "I don't even know what's happening."

"You're the main suspect." Chiron put his hand on Percy's shoulder. "Because of your father, your uncle believes that you have stolen a very important hard drive."

"What could a hard drive have that could possibly be that important that a twelve year old has to get it? He can't get it himself?"

Luke shook his head. "He's perfectly capable of getting it himself, but he doesn't want to. All the adults are really lazy."

Percy started at Luke. The way Luke discribed the adults... He sounded almost bitter. As if the adults don't care about the kids.

"Do the adults care then?" Percy asked.

"That's the leading cause of kids joining the gang that wants to destroy the camp and take over the world." Luke explained. "They want the adults to care."

"Now you, Percy," Chiron started. "You must go on and find the drive. It has important information about the gang and how to possibly shut them down."

"You guys have to go to LA." Luke explained. "Hades, your other uncle, is another suspect. You guys have to get the drive back from Hades."

"You could get your mother back. We already got confirmation that she's with Hades."

"And you have to get it in fourteen days." Luke patted Percy's knee. "If not, then your uncle is killing your dad, your other uncle, and your mom."

That made Percy hesitate. He'd been so caught up with where he's been he's forgotten about his mom. He felt horrible. "But-"

"You don't have a choice." Luke's voice sounded bitter. "When the adults want you to do something you have to do it or they'll kill you."

"They won't actually..." Percy stopped talking when he saw the faces of the other four. "They'll actually kill us if we won't do their bidding?"

Luke nodded. "Yup. Now get going."

_________________________________________

Percy had decided to bring along Grover and Annabeth.

He wanted to bring Luke instead of Annabeth so he wouldn't have to deal with a girl, but Luke didn't really want to go.

"I've got stuff to take care of." Luke put his hand on Percy's shoulder. "When you get back, we've gotta hang more. And watch your back."

The way Luke said 'watch your back'. He said it almost like a warning... He said it with a tone of bitterness. What was Luke trying to say?

"Let's go." Grover wrapped an arm around Percy and the other around Annabeth. The tutoring director, Argus, was in a white van.

"Sketchy van." Percy whispered.

"He's dropping us of at the bus stop." Grover said back. "I'm sure that looks sketchy enough."

As they loaded in the van, Luke's words rung in his head. Getting a hard drive from an uncle in Los Angeles can't be too hard.

_________________________________________

Percy was still unnerved by the fact that Luke double and triple checked that Percy had a gun. He had to make sure he had a fully loaded gun.

Percy had no ides how to shoot. Luke gave a five minute tutorial, basically saying to pull the trigger and always have safety off.

Then, they were on the bus. The bus was supposed to go straight to Los Angeles.

Their was a change in plans when Annabeth started hitting Percy's arm as much as she could. It was barely an hour and a half into the ride.

Of course, that seemed worse for a kid with ADHD.

"What?" Percy asked exasperated.

"Look." She pointed to the front of the bus where two old ladies were sitting.

"That can't be-" Grover looked at Annabeth.

"It is. You guys killed their sister they're obviously gonna want to get revenge without going to camp directly. It's gonna get complicated."

"Can someone please explain what's going on?" Percy was getting pretty tired of being in the dark at all times. It was getting very annoying.

"I need to go to the bathroom." One of the old ladies said as she stood up.

"Me too." The other announced.

The two got up, and Annabeth pushed Percy to the other seat across from them that was empty. "Stay quiet." She told him.

One of the old ladies threw something into the seat where Grover and Annabeth were sitting.

Even though Percy had known Annabeth for maybe a day, he still felt obliged to something. He had known Grover for at least a year.

"Go Seaweed Brain." Annabeth told him with wild eyes.

"Bomb!" Percy yelled as the bomb exploded. He didn't know that it was actually a bomb. He had guessed it as it went off.

As the bus exploded, the trio escaped through one of the broken windows. The old ladies were nowhere to be seen. "That was crazy."

"What the hell, Percy." Annabeth snapped. "Why didn't you leave when you had the chance? You could've saved yourself dude."

"And leave you two to die? No thanks."

Grover laughed and raised his eyebrows at Annabeth. "Seaweed Brain?"

Annabeth blushed. "Nickname. Besides, I've called you goatboy for forever."

Percy shrugged. "Okay," he thought for a second for a nickname. "Wise Girl. Let's go guys. I'm hungry."

"But we're lost." Grover pointed out.

Percy looked back at the wreckage from the bus. "Well then, let's get even more lost by looking for somewhere to eat even though all of our money was on the exploded bus."

_________________________________________

It took four hours.

Four hours without eating or having a drink of water.

Fours hours of endlessly wondering around the forest like stupid idiots until they found the restaurant with the neon pink cursive sign.

"Wanna go there?" Percy pointed to the sign. He squinted at the sign and shook his head. "I can't read what it says."

Annabeth sighed in frustration. "I can't either. I freaking hate Dyslexia."

At least someone else understood him. "Whatever it is, maybe we can at least go inside and borrow a phone to call M- Chiron."

Grover wrapped an arm around Percy. "No can do. The Titans hear every call that tutoring gets and if they know we're out here, then you're as good as dead."

"Where are we anyways?" Percy looked to a green road sign he couldn't read.

"We're in New Jersey!" Grover yelled. "Goddamnit, everything is legal in New Jersey!"

"Is murder legal?" Annabeth questioned.

"No-"

"Then not everything is legal."

"We're lost in the woods somewhere in New Jersey and we're never gonna make it to LA." Percy realized.

"It's cause we blew up the bus to Los Angeles." Grover sat down. "Should we even be allowed to eat? I feel so guilty, especially after your mom."

"Grover," Annabeth put her arms around him. "You can't blame yourself for everything. Thalia wasn't your fault and neither is this."

"You've mentioned Thalia twice." Percy gestured at Annabeth. "Who is she? I don't remember Luke telling you to tell me who she is."

"That's because Luke tries his best to forget about her." Grover looked at a tree in the distance. "She was such a tree lover. I never understood."

Annabeth laughed. "She reminded me of Evan Hansen." She made quotation marks in the air. "I'm sending pictures of the most amazing trees."

Kids!" Percy heard. "Come here, please. You really shouldn't be out all alone during this time of night. Please, do come in."

The trio all got up running and went to where the voice was. The restaurant is the direction where Grover went, so he and Annabeth followed him.

"Where are your parents?" It was an old woman who had been calling out to them.

"That's a lot of statues." Grover mumbled as he looked at the old ladie's place.

"We're in the circus." Percy blabbed out in a moment of panic. "We lost our cavern so we had to stop. We have no food and have been lost for four hours."

Annabeth face palmed. "Cavern?" She mumbled.

"Let me go get you kids some food. In the meantime, feel free to look at my statues." The lady looked at the blond. "Such beautiful eyes, Annabeth."

"Thanks." She narrowed her grey eyes at the old lady.

When the old lady left, Annabeth touched a statue to her right. "I never told her my name yet she somehow knew something is wrong."

The lady came back. She had a plate with burgers and fries. "It's on the house kids. Please enjoy. I hope you adore my statues."

Grover started eating the fries. "They don't feel like stone. Do you mind me asking what kind of material this is made out of?"

The lady looked to the statue next to her. "I do taxidermy, dear. I'm a taxidermist. I love all of this stuff. They all keep me company."

"What's taxidermy?" Percy knew that he read a story, The Landlady, on it once during English. Except he wasn't really paying attention.

Annabeth stood. "We really must be going, miss. Thank you for the free food, but we must keep searching for our circus."

"Stay, Annabeth. Don't you want to stay? After everything your mother did to me?" The old lady was going to the kitchen and opening drawers.

"We need to leave." Annabeth looked desperate for escape. "Now. Or at least you two leave. She'll spare you. Me, not so much."

"What?" Percy looked back to where the lady was. His hand drifted to the handgun that Luke packed with his stuff. The only time Percy was smart enough to take it with him.

"Stay. Don't you wanna hear about what the girl with the beautiful eyes did to me? How she harmed me?" The old lady threw a knife.

"What the hell?" Grover grabbed both Percy and Annabeth by the wrist and started dragging them out.

The lady laughed. "I am a known taxidermist. Except instead of stuffing animals, I stuff people. My name is Medusa!"

"Hurry up. Grover grabbed his gun and started shooting blindly at the lady.

"Such beautiful grey eyes. Would be such a shame to see them wither away. It would be so much better if I could stuff them." The lady threw another knife.

Annabeth grabbed something from her jacket pocket. "Making sure the monster my mom created brings no more harm to anyone else."

"What are you doing?" Percy looked at the object in her hand. He couldn't get a good view on what it was.

"Doing what any person with a brain would do." She threw the object from her hand into a window. "I'm blowing up the place."

Grover clapped and cheered wildely. "Yeah that's great." He flipped off the restaurant. "Take that you old, ugly mother bi-"

His epic speech was cut off by an explosion that made Percy go unconscious.

But hey, that's the best way to get interrupted in Percy's opinion.

_________________________________________

Percy woke up in the back of what he presumed was a van.

The first thing anyone should do if they're in an unknown moving veichle while your family is tangled with gangs is scream.

Yes, Percy screamed. No, it wasn't a frilly scream. It wasn't even a shriek. It was more of a yell of awareness to know where he is.

The stupid part is that he let his attacker know that he was fully awake and conscious. His friends woke up immediately alert.

"I know this van." Grover whispered, looking at Annabeth.

"You have got to be kidding me." The blond girl sighed. "I hate this guy and I never want to see this guy. Please, kill me now."

"What?" Once again, Percy was left in the dark. He was getting really tired of never being able to know what's happening around him.

"I need a favor." The car stopped and a separator glass opened. The glass reveled a guy with sunglasses and a leather jacket. "Nice to see you again, Annie."

"Don't call me Annie and I don't really want to do any favors for you so if you could tell us where we are then we'll be on our way." Annabeth said in a run on sentance.

"You're in Houston," the guy pulled a gun out and aimed it at Percy's head. "And you're doing that favor for me unless you want me to shoot."

On the outside, Percy had to act like he was cool and he was calm and that he didn't care that a fully loaded gun was pointed at his head.

On the inside, Percy was screaming his lungs out. The only reason he wouldn't get shoot right now is if Annabeth said she would help.

"Fine!" Annabeth yelled out. She slapped the gun. "What do you need? You jerk."

"You know my girlfriend, right?" The man smiled, reveling many different colored teeth. He didn't wait for a response. "Go to the water park, she left her scarf there. Get it and bring it back."

Whoever this guy is, he had no choice to speak to anyone the way he was. "I don't think we have to do anything for you."

"We have to do this for Ares or he'll kill our friends and family." Grover started getting out of the veichle.

"Go to Waterland." Ares ordered. "It's abounded you should have no problem getting in. Get the scarf and meet me at iHop."

Once Percy had gotten out of the van, it drove away. Percy's foot was still in the van, so he had to hobble out of it as he fell on his side.

"Let's get this thing over with." Annabeth grumbled as she started walking forward.

_________________________________________

This was the second time that Percy had fallen on his side in the past ten minutes.

Both Annabeth and Grover had super badass landings as they hopped the chain link fence to the park. Percy fell on the last link and landed on his side.

"Idiot." Annabeth muttered before she ran to the rides.

"What the hell is her problem?" Percy stood up and brushed himself after his very hard fall.

"Ares. I don't blame her for getting like that. I would do the same but I didn't really wanna show him that I'm that mad." Grover walked with Annabeth.

They looked through at least four different rides before finding the one with a pink scarf. "Percy, go get it." Annabeth ordered.

Percy decided it would be better to not question the armed, angry girl so he did as instructed. When he grabbed the scarf, something started moving.

His first instinct was to grab onto something, so he grabbed Annabeth's arm and pulled her into the ride with him.

It was the ride that started moving. The water from the ride was making the boat that the rider sat in launch at full speed forward.

"Grover go to the front and meet us there!" Annabeth managed to yell before the boat started to propel foward. The two pre-teens yelled.

"We need to jump." Annabeth stood up but quickly sat down as she saw spiders coming out of the pipes. "Spiders..." She started to get a wild look in her eyes.

Percy grabbed Annabeth's hand and stood up. To block the spiders from her view, he covered her eyes with the other hand.

"Jump on my count." Percy started getting ready to count.

"Now." Annabeth moved Percy's hands and jumped.

Obviously, because they were grabbing on to each other, wherever Annabeth went Percy had to go. They both jumped off the ride.

As they got onto dry land, Percy landed on top of Annabeth. She shoved him off and yelled at the scarf. Luckily, the scarf didn't yell back.

"Let's hurry to iHop." Grover grabbed their wrist and started running to the exit of the waterpark. 

"What was that?" Percy pointed at the fact that he was soaking wet and his hair was dripping. His green eyes burned with most likely bleached water.

"A trap." Annabeth started climbing the fence. "The reason Ares made us come get his girlfriend's scarf is because he knew that The Titans made a trap.

_________________________________________

"We got your stupid scarf now we're leaving." Annabeth dropped the scarf where Ares was sitting and started walking out.

"I can get you guys to Vegas if you let me explain." That stopped Annabeth dead in her tracks. "I have a little information that may be useful."

Annabeth grabbed the scarf again. "Tell us now, or I'm ripping this scarf. I'm sure that everyone will be pleased to hear about your affair again."

Ares froze. "There's a truck outside that's heading to Hollywood. That's exactly where you need to go. One stop in Las Vegas."

"Why Hollywood?" Percy asked before Annabeth could shut him up.

"Look for D.O.A. recording studio. You'll find your uncle there. Also, a backpack." Ares handed it to Percy. "I'm trying to help."

"We'll be going now." She grabbed Grover and Percy's arms. "Let's go guys, we don't really need this jerk's help anymore."

_________________________________________

The ride in an illegal truck was going to be at least fifteen hours.

They know that because Percy decided to stupidly pull out his cheap phone and search it. He forgot that people can see what he's doing.

"Stupid," Annabeth stopped her sentence and dropped her head in her hands. "The Titans are gonna see that we're heading to Las Vegas. Good going."

As they snuck onto the bus, Grover grabbed his backpack and made his own pillow. Before sleeping, he put his hand on Annabeth's shoulder.

Percy was getting so tired of them being so secretive. If attention is what kids wanted when joining the gang, he was about to join.

Percy never meant to hurt anyone. He never tried to do anything. He tried to be a good kid and a good son.

But people need to stop keeping secrets from him if that's possible.

"I'm telling him about Thalia, so if you don't wanna hear sleep now." Annabeth snapped before resting her head on her backpack. "No more secrets."

"Who's Thalia?" Was Percy's first question.

"She's your cousin, actually. We just didn't know until you came. Anyways, she's still with us. You could see her, but she's not well."

Percy was scared to ask. "What happened to her?"

"On the day me, Luke, Grover and her came to camp, she tried to defend us against a gang member. That didn't go well for her."

"Wait, but I thought you said that she's still with us?"

"She is." Annabeth paused and drew a shaky breath. "She got a hard hit in the head, and she fell into a coma. She saved us all though."

"Why haven't I heard more about her besides from Luke and you?"

"This was five years ago, Percy."

"Oh."

Five years ago. Five years ago Percy was complaining about not having a school to go to. His cousin was dealing with a death-like stance.

"Luke was in love with her." A tear came from Annabeth's grey eye. "I'm pretty sure he still does. Grover blames himself, though."

Grover sat us. Wasn't he just asleep a second ago? "I was supposed to protect her. I failed and she ended up falling into a coma. For five years."

"We planted a tree for her." Annabeth sniffled. "It's called Thalia's Pine, since she loved trees. It wasn't Grover's fault whatsoever."

"I was sent to protect Thalia and I got her into a coma. I was sent to protect Percy and I get his mom kidnapped." Grover cried out.

"What happened to my mom was not your fault, Grover. We're gonna get this stupid Lighting Bolt and my mom." Percy reassured.

"I'm sorry you were trapped at camp, Annabeth. I wish you got out more." Grover announced before finally going to bed.

"What does he mean?" Percy asked her.

"I've wanted to leave camp since I was seven but I never got permission to."

"Why don't you just leave? You can obviously defend yourself."

She was silent for a while. "I don't know what's going to happen with the hard drive, but I know that I'll be fighting next to you." Annabeth laid her head on her backpack.

"Why's that?" Percy isn't used to having girls not be grossed out by him.

"Because your my friend, Seaweed Brain. Any more stupid questions?" Before Percy could respond to what she said, Annabeth had fallen asleep.

_________________________________________

"Unload here." Percy woke up to a male voice banging on the side of the truck. Had it really been fifteen hours they'd been in a truck?

"When they open the truck, run as fast as you can into the nearest building. After that, we leave the building quietly." Annabeth explained the plan.

The plan went into play less then five seconds later when the truck opened, reveling two guys standing at the base of the truck and a very bright sun.

The kids and two guys must've stared at each other for at least five seconds before finally Annabeth did something and started running.

"There!" She pointed to a red elaborate building. This is Vegas. The building had red shinning leaders. It was hard for Percy to read.

"The Lotus Hotel and Casino?" Grover asked as he ran and read.

"Yeah whatever go there." Annabeth started running faster and kept going.

They entered the elaborate building and were greeted by a very nice and clean hotel. This is Vegas. Was anything ever clean in Vegas?

"Hello, room keys?" A bellhop asked as she came up to the very underage and unsupervised twelve year old kids who are tangeled with gangs.

"No thanks. We're not here to stay." Percy told her. He and his friends were getting ready to walk out of the place. They ran and hid.

"We've been expecting you, Perseus Jackson. We knew that you might be stopping by here." The bellhop reached into her pocket.

Because of living with Gabe, he knew that you weren't supposed to put your hands in pockets around gambling since you may be hiding poker chips.

"Run." Grover instructed as he starting heading to the exit.

"Can't get away that easy." The bellhop and two other employees grabbed Percy and his friends. "This should delay you for a bit."

He tried his best to not go unconscious. It took all his willpower not to sleep so he could see where he and his friends were being taken.

When Percy's head made contact with the floor, he knocked out immediately. After sleeping for fifteen freaking hours, they can still pass out?

But Percy was able to see that he and his friends were thrown into a closet where the lock clicked very loudly.

_________________________________________

Every time he woke up, Percy got his lights punched out.

He had to have woken up at least five times a day. And who knows for how many days this has been happening. It's annoying.

It's bad when the original bad thing is now becoming boring. That now the attacker can't do anything more creative then punch?

Because Percy has a couple of creative words to share with the attackers. He's already heard Annabeth and Grover say that kind of stuff.

"Is anyone else awake?" Grover had do whisper.

They learned that when they spoke too loud that the attacker would come back and punch them. They already know the schedule.

"Here." Percy and Annabeth said in unison. They both blushed. Pre-teens, they don't get the job done and are very annoying at times.

The door opened. Percy braced for impact. Nothing came. "Do you guys want anything?" A man said looking at the door.

"I want my mom back." Percy looked to see who this new person was with.

"Sorry man I only brought five dollars with me but I do know where you guys are heading. D.O.A.? That's my recording studio." The man kept glancing at the door.

"I don't trust you." Grover stood up and kicked the guy in the soft spot. "There's nobody we could trust right now, besides each other."

Annabeth smiled approvingly at Grover. "Thalia really did teach you a couple things. And you kept them in your mind somehow."

Grover smiled back. "Now, let's all stop praising me and let's get out of here so we can find someone who actually knows D.O.A."

"How did you know that wasn't actually the owner?" Percy asked as they started quietly walking down the hallway.

Quiet is a nice way to put it. More like everyone but Percy was able to shut up in that moment. Was probably the ADHD getting him.

"The real owner is your uncle, Hades." Grover pointed to the door. "That was not your uncle." He pointed to the end of the hallway. "And we need to run."

Percy didn't even question it. After running and/or waiting for cues to run, he's learned that the best thing to do is follow everyone else.

"Left, right." Grover guided. Since when was Grover such a genius with directions?

Once they got to the lobby, the place was almost swarming with employees. They decided to pull a Hamilton and do that awkward walk.

You know, that walk he does when him, Aaron Burr and John Laurens are doing while saying 'hey' during A Winters Ball and Helpless.

"Stop them there!" Someone shouted as they were walking out. Percy punched to the left and right, and eventually he gave up and walked out of the casino.

_________________________________________

"Should we catch a cab or see if the recording studio is in walking distance?" Annabeth asked while looking at a newspaper she found

"Cab." Grover started trying to haul on. "For one, they're easier. Second, it's not like we're actually going to pay the cab driver. Third, we're in Vegas. So we gotta drive if we wanna get to LA."

"Guys," Annabeth points to an address in the newspaper. "It's not even a five hour drive. This is perfect. We can get to Hollywood today."

"The date." Percy pointed to that date near the address. "How is it already June twentieth?"

"That can't be right." Grover studied the newspaper. "We left camp with fourteen days. How are we already on our last day?"

"Doesn't matter." Annabeth starts speeding up her walking pace. "It's gonna take five hours and I don't really wanna see the taxi fare."

_________________________________________

Percy loved watching when someone was in action.

That meant Grover and Annabeth threating the taxi driver when he was about to make them pay the nine hundred dollar fee.

"We're getting out, and you're going to let us because no one wants to see three underage kids go from Las Vegas to LA by themselves, right?" Grover asked.

"And you have a girl with you." Annabeth started getting out. "What would that look like?"

The three got out of the taxi and ran to the building they were dropped of at. The driver said a few choice words then drove off.

"We need to see Hades." Grover announced as the trio ran into the building and to the counter.

"Are you dead?" The man at the counter asked.

"Code word." Grover whispered. "We all drowned in a big bathtub." Nice going, Grover. Really smooth and slick.

"You can't see him." The man announced, going back to whatever he was doing.

"Once he knows who this kid," Annabeth gestured at Percy. "Is, he'll want to see us."

"And who are you?" The man narrowed his eyes at Percy.

"Percy Jackson, sir." Percy responded.

The man pushed a button. "Hurry up and go. Hades has been expecting you."

_________________________________________

"We need the Lightning Bolt so please be nicer then everyone we've met and give us the Bolt, please." Percy asked when he saw Hades.

"I don't have it." Hades looked back, with piercing black eyes and the same colored skin. "I was hoping you would return my Helm of Darkness."

"It's a baseball cap with autographs from the Dodgers stop calling it that." Annabeth stated. "Such drama."

"Either way, I heard you were around. I want the Lightning Bolt and then I'll give you your mom." Hades pushed a button and a woman appeared.

"Percy." She tried to run out, but she was blocked by bars. "Percy, don't you dare give him that bolt."

"I don't have it." Percy announced. Percy was a lot of things, but he wasn't a theif.

"Check your backpack." Percy did as instructed and checked his backpack. He found a hard drive, nothing special. No label even.

But both Grover and Annabeth stepped away from him. "Is this..." Percy asked them. They both nodded. "I did not steal it."

"We believe you." Annabeth said. "It's who the backpack belonged to before. How did Ares get a hold of the bolt?"

"Doesn't matter now." Grover started running. "Just run."

Two people blocked the door. For the millionth time it seemed, Percy was punched and knocked out.

_________________________________________

"It's the evening before June twenty-first and we have maybe two hours. Do we give the bolt back or maybe kill Ares?" Annabeth explained.

Basically, once they had been punched again, they were flown in a private jet and were now in New York, all the way across the country.

Two hours before the clock struck twelve, meaning two hours before everyone that Percy loved was going to die.

"We need to get to bolt to my uncle but one question." Percy said. "Where is my uncle? Zeus, I mean. Not Hades. I know where he's at."

"I can tell you all of that." Ares had appeared on the beach that Percy and his friends got stuck on. "Your welcome for the bolt, by the way."

"Pendejo." Percy cursed at Ares.

Ares, being white, had no idea what he had said but Grover started cracking up silently. "What the hell did you tell me little boy?"

"Nothing." Percy and Grover said in unison, laughing.

"Little punk." Ares grabbed Percy violently by the collar of his shirt and threw him into the sand. "Don't call me stuff that I don't know."

"Your brain is too tiny for you to know half the stuff we say." Annabeth muttered mainly to herself. It wasn't meant to be an insult.

"Kids are asking for it now a days." Ares pointed to where Percy was on the ground. "We're dueling, right here and right now."

"Okay." Percy got out the gun that Luke had packed him so long ago. Safety was permantly off. The gun was already fully loaded.

"Just do it here? Okay." Ares made the first shot by shooting the gun directly at Percy's foot.

Grover ran quickly to the other side of the beach. It was ten o'clock at night but maybe someone else was on the beach somewhere.

But Percy didn't have time to think about who else may be at the beach. He could only think about shooting the gun that he didn't know how to shoot.

"Percy, duck." Percy did as Annabeth told him, and he saw a bronze knife fly over his head and impale Ares in the shoulder holding the gun.

"You," Ares threw the knife back and it hit Annabeth in the foot.

"Puta madré." Annabeth cursed as the knife went into her foot. It didn't come out the other side of her shoe, so that the was a good sign.

Percy had to help her. How much blood would she lose if Annabeth stayed out with a bloody foot? If she let her foot bleed out?

That knife might end up in the hearts of the people that Percy love if he doesn't get the stupid gang hard drive back to his uncle.

As Percy dodged another weakly thrown punch, he subconsciously was walking towards the water. Maybe he can get Ares into the water.

"You really think someone as tough as me is afraid of a little water?" Ares sneered as he noticed that Percy was going to the water.

"How do you feel about a lot of water then?" Percy ran towards Ares and turned around so he could now face him.

Annabeth was still cussing in Spanish in the background. Ares said he didn't like it when people talked about stuff he didn't understand.

What if Ares was in something that he couldn't understand? Even better, if Ares could not get out of said something? That would trap him.

"It's just a little water." Percy shot one time, his first bullet and missed. He was trying to shot Ares into the water so he could help Annabeth.

"Put down the guns." An officer had come into view, and they were pulling their own gun out.

"This is the man who kidnapped us." Grover lied. "My friend here stole a gun from him so he could fight our kidnapper so we can leave."

"This crazy man even threw this knife into my foot." Annabeth pointed to her bloody foot. "Please, take us away from him."

"You kids ain't going anywhere." Ares shot the cop. Probably didn't kill the cop, but it at least was enough to knock him out.

"Yes we are." While Ares was distracted, Percy shot at Ares, grabbing a backpack Ares had on before it could fall into the water.

Grover and Percy helped Annabeth up, grabbing her shoulders. She gripped there's as she started limping along next to them.

"What's in the backpack?" Annabeth asked as she limped.

Percy let go of her for a second and went through the backpack. He found a letter, a box, a stamp, and a Los Angeles Dodgers baseball cap.

"To the post office away." Grover grabbed Annabeth again and started hurrying.

_________________________________________

"Are you sure you don't want us to come with?" Annabeth whispered while they waited for the post office to ship the box to Hollywood.

"My responsibility. Not yours." Percy got up and put his hands on both Grover and Annabeth's knee. "Go back to camp to tell them what happened if I die."

Before they could protest, the office lady interrupted them. "Your package has been shipped."

"Could we get some extra bubble wrap?" Percy asked before they left, winking at his friends. Hopefully they understood what his idea was.

_________________________________________

After wrapping Annbeth's leg in a homemade cast, they were finally ready to send the bolt back to Zeus, and everybody would be alive.

"Isn't it kind of weird that where we needed to go was open? I don't thin post offices are supposed to be open at ten at night." Annbeth hobbled along.

"Dearest Annie," Percy wrapped an arm around her. "You haven't been out in the world for five years. Things have changed since then."

"Don't call me Annie." Annabeth warned. She saw a cab and whistled for it. The cab kept going, ignoring the three kids.

"This is New York." Grover reminded. He tried whistling for a cab until five cabs later, one finally decided to do their job and stop for them."

"How many of ya?" Asked an old lady who was the cab driver.

"Three." Grover helped Annabeth into the car.

"Two." Percy didn't get in, instead he stayed on the sidewalk. "You two go back to tutoring. I'll take the bolt back to Zeus."

"Do you even know where to go?" Annabeth doubted.

"No, do one of you?" Hey, Percy's only been dealing with gangs for fourteen days. Can't expect him to know everything.

"Empire State Building. And Percy," Annabeth quickly grabbed his hand but let go quickly. "Please, be careful, okay? You only have an hour and a half."

"I'll be fine." Percy closed to cab door as the cab drove off. He looked at the Empire State Building in the distance. "No I won't."

_________________________________________

A little breaking and entering never hurt anybody.

At least that's what Percy thought as he climbed into a window. The place probably had good security, so he had to be stealthy.

That meant Percy going into the window, somehow tripping, and landing on his face, making at least enough noise to alert security.

"Goddamnit-" Percy cut himself off by running to the elevator. He didn't know how much time he has before the police came looking for him.

He also knew that the elevator may not be fully operating, or what floor he was supposed to go to. Maybe pushing every button would work.

Pushing buttons, Percy went from floor one-hundred two and started going pushing the buttons backwards. This was a horrible plan.

Two minutes later, Percy had arrived at the top. The door opened, and he saw that the lights were on. He stepped out of the elevator.

As he walked down the hall, Percy saw that the only lights that were on was the lights near the hallway. Any other light was off.

"Hello?" Percy called out. Probably not the best thing to do when exploring a new place.

"Hello." Two voices said in unison.

"Oh shit." Percy muttered quietly. "What am I supposed to do now?"

"I can hear you, son." Someone warned.

"Who the fuc-"

"Language." The voice warned again.

"Whom the fuc-"

"Not what I meant." The two people talking made their way out of the areas that had no light.

Percy immediately recognized one of the guys as the guy that was in the projector maybe a couple of weeks ago. He couldn't remember.

"Hello, son." The projector man said. "I really did hope that we would get a better introduction without my petty brother being here."

"He stole it, so he's giving it back." Zeus, or Percy's uncle, glared daggers and both the projection man and Percy.

"I have your Lightning Bolt." Percy pulled out the tiny flash drive that had caused so much trouble and so much punching.

"I understand that you went through a lot to get this back because you did not steal it." Poesidon looks at his brother. "Please, explain it all."

So, Percy did. He told them how he met a taxidermist, blew up a bus, almost got attacked by a boat, and other stuff. "I got punched a lot, too."

Poseidon laughed. "Who was with you?"

"Grover Underwood is one. He's great and an all amazing guy, so he doesn't deserve anything you might do to him."

"Anyone else?"

Percy blushed a bit. "Annabeth Chase. She was probably the most badass out of all of us, and she got us out of a lot of difficult things."

Poseidon chuckled. "No one else?"

Percy shook his head. "No one else. Now, what about my mom?"

"The woman who Poseidon had an affair with to have the kids we all agreed to not have. She's still alive?" Zeus raised an eyebrow.

"We'll talk later about this, not in front of my son. And I seem to remember you having a a daughter, so I would shut up." Poseidon grinned happily.

"At least we're not like Hermes, having kids twenty-four seven."

"On that we can agree."

"Hello." Percy raised his hand. "I'm still alive, so it would be nice for you to acknowledge me while I'm still here."

"Watch out for The Titans." Percy's father warned. "They're still trying to figure you out, so be careful with everything you do and know that someone is watching."

"Great." Percy rolled his eyes and the thought of no more freedom.

"And they tagged everybody's phone, so they can see what you do on there too."

"So I can't go looking up how to stop an evil gang and plane tickets to Tokyo?"

Poseidon laughed. "Zeus, give us at least two minutes."

Zeus groaned and left the area. He was probably still lurking in the shadows not even five feet away to hear their conversation.

"Please, be careful son. Don't go to your apartment, it's too dangerous. Go to tutoring, they'll keep training you and now you get your own bunk." Poseidon smiled.

"I will, dad." It felt weird to call someone you haven't seen for twelve years dad.

"I love you." Poseidon was about to leave but he turned. "Watch your back."

Percy thought about the words that both Luke and Poseidon had said as he got back into the elevator for the first floor.

_________________________________________

A car with a strawberry logo was awaiting Percy when he got down from the Empire State Building.

The window rolled down. "I got a call saying you would be here." Luke smiled as Percy got into the car with the older guy. "Don't ask how though."

"Did Grover and Annabeth make it back yet?" It would seriously suck if Percy survived but his friends didn't. He doesn't want to leave them.

"They got back almost five minutes ago. I broke the speed limit just so I could get here in time to pick you up." Luke locked the car and rolled up the window.

"So you broke the law?" Percy doesn't know if that's allowed, really. Considering all the laws Percy broke in the past days, he can't really say anything.

"For you amigo." Luke started pressing on the brake, going at least a gazillion miles an hour. "I can get to camp in less then two minutes. Wanna bet?"

Percy shook his head and grabbed the seat. "No, I believe you really and I would still believe you if you slowed down a couple hundred miles per hour."

"No can do." If it was possible, the car started going faster. "Kronos wants you in a couple of minutes and I intend to please him."

Kronos.

Where had Percy heard that name?

"What?" Percy asked.

"See? Less then two minutes." Luke pointed outside the rolled window, but all Percy saw was forest and no sign of tutoring. Or anybody.

"Where the hell are we?" Percy tried to reach for the thing that sticks up to unlock the door.

"Get out of the car." Luke pressed the unlock button while staring directly at Percy. "If you run you'll regret everything you've ever done."

Scared, Percy quickly got out of the car. He was about to make a run for it when he heard the familiar sound of a gunshot near him.

Percy looked down and noticed that Luke had tried to shoot Percy in the foot. Or at least the leg area. What was Luke trying to do?

"I warned you." Luke started walking up to Percy, a knife in his hand. Percy started stepping backwards. "I told you to watch your back."

Percy started moving a little faster. "How did you know that I was alive and safe after Grover and Annabeth went back to tutoring?"

Luke laughed. "You really think that The Titans would let me do anything without a spy? Obviously I need one. I'm just not telling you who."

"The only people who were with me was Grover and Annabeth but I know they aren't your spies." Percy tried reaching for his gun.

"I've been here since I was a kid. I did everything they ever asked. And for what? You know this world will never be ours as long as our stupid parents ignore us." Luke spat.

"You don't need to do this." Percy pleaded.

"I'll do anything." Luke started circling Percy with his knife. "Don't care if I hurt anyone. It doesn't pay to be a good kid or a good son."

Reaching for his gun, Percy started circling around Luke. "I don't want to do this. If you want to, then that's fine with me."

"Fine." Luke started running towards Percy, his knife in the air.

Percy would've shot if the bundle of blond hair hadn't gone in the middle of the two. "Stop! What are you guys doing?"

"If we join this gang, we could find a way to wake Thalia. Join The Titans with me, Annabeth." Luke started lowering his knife.

"As much as I would love to wake her, I'm not going against her." Annabeth walked next to Percy. "She wouldn't want you to do this because of her."

"Well then," Luke raised his knife again. "I guess you won't be needing Percy anymore then." Luke threw his knife, and Percy couldn't dodge it.

The knife ended up hitting Percy in the side. Percy felt a pain that he has never felt before. Probably because he's never been stabbed.

"Percy!" Annabeth yelled then looked behind her. "Luke!" But Luke was gone. He had stabbed Percy probably for a distraction.

"I can't believe he would join The Titans. I never knew he was capable of something like that." Annabeth looked down at Percy.

"Help." Percy laughed. He felt delusional.

"Oh God." Annabeth placed her hand on the new wound. Blood was on her hand when she pulled her hand away. "Okay, we gotta go."

Percy felt himself being lifted up. "Why don't you ever go home?" Percy put his arm on Annabeth's shoulder so he could walk.

"You're delusional. You don't know what you're saying." Annabeth shook her head.

"Okay, but I still wanna know."

"My dad hates me, basically."

"Ask him to go home." Percy's vision began blurring. "I'm sure he'll understand even though you haven't gone home since you were seven."

"You need to shut up." Annabeth started walking faster. "With all the blood you're losing you're not doing yourself a favor by talking."

"Shutting up because Annabeth is scary." Percy did decide to be quiet. Not because a girl ordered him to. But because he liked the silence.

Even though he had just been stabbed and may die, he felt safe. At least he knew that someone would remember him if he died.

At least he had a friend who's helping him and who cares what's going to happen because of the wound. Unlike Luke.

The last thing Percy heard and saw was a lot of screaming before being taken to a room with lots of bright lights and passing out.

_________________________________________

"You're drooling." Percy heard when he woke up.

Percy laughed. He looked up and saw that both Grover and Annabeth were staring down at him. Concerned looks were obvious.

"Again." Grover repeated.

"Wait, what's happening?" Percy tried to sit up. He immediately regretted it by feeling pain. He clutched his side and sat back down.

"Don't get up yet." Annabeth put her hand on his shoulder. "It's probably not a good idea to try standing up or sitting when you just got stabbed."

"Annabeth told me everything." Grover glanced at the blond. "Look man, I'm sorry neither of us could help. I think I speak for both of us."

"How could you help?" Percy didn't want his friends to feel guilty. "Neither of us could do much against someone with a knife anyways."

"I had my weapon with me." Annabeth took out her knife and stared at it. "I could've helped you. Maybe not kill him but maybe a little scratch."

"You don't want that kind of thing on your hands." Grover said. "Take Phillip Hamilton. Yeah, he died but at least he didn't do the killing."

"Phillip Hamilton is from the seventeen hundreds." Annabeth reminded. "This is two thousand seventeen. Things are different now."

"You're right." Percy agreed. "But I'm also right when I say that you guys could not have done more then I did. Don't feel guilty."

"That's the way we think." Grover shook his head. "When you deal with this kind of thing you can't help but blame yourself for something going wrong."

"Unfortunately," Percy started. "I'm gonna be hanging out with you guys more often so I guess that means that I get to think the way you do."

"You've been asleep for two days by the way." Annabeth mentioned.

"Wait what?"

"It's time for you to go home." Annabeth looked down. "Your mom has been waiting for you since we got back. You should go see her."

Percy felt bad. "Sorry to leave you here alone with only Clarisse. And Grover could get attached sometimes." He teased.

"Actually," Annabeth's smile got way wider. "I took your drunken advice. I asked my dad if I could go home and he said yes."

"And I'm going to look for my uncle. It's about time I stop avoiding his disappearance and do something about it." Grover jumped a little.

"What?" He's only been awake for maybe five minutes and Percy was really confused.

"It's a long story. I'll explain it next time we see each other." Grover patted his shoulder. "But for now, I guess it's see you later."

"I want to stand." Despite the pain, Percy sat up and tried standing.

"Woah there." Annabeth grabbed him by the shoulders. Their faces were maybe two inches apart. They both blushed and looked away.

Grover muttered something that Percy couldn't hear. "I'm gonna go talk to Chiron and see if he need anything. Luke is still out there."

When Grover left, Percy looked back at the blushing Annabeth. "I know about your feelings for Luke. This has to be hard."

"As of right now," Annabeth cleared her throat. "I really don't know how I feel about Luke."

"At least we're friends." Percy started walking forward. Annabeth had no choice but to follow him and support him as he walked.

"Yeah. Honestly I didn't think I would become friends with someone else my age besides Grover." Annabeth said.

"You know what Clarisse told me the day we played Capture the Flag?" Percy asked.

Annabeth shook her head. "No, I don't believe so."

"She said, 'Blondie can capture my heart but she's gonna capture the flag'. Any idea what she means?" Maybe Clarisse meant Luke.

Annabeth blushed. She looked down again. "Nope. I have no idea what she means by that. Maybe you should ask her. Never mind. Don't do that."

Leaving the room, Percy noticed that they ended up outside. "Wanna come down the hill with me? I need a snarky commenter just in case." Annabeth asked.

Percy shurgged and laughed. "I would love to be your snarky commenter."

In the end, Annabeth practically ended up dragging Percy down the hill because he couldn't walk well. A silver Honda was parked by a pine tree.

"My dad." Annabeth still had her arm around Percy when a middle aged man came out of the car. "Only talk if someone says something rude."

"Annabeth..." The man took her away from Percy and hugged her. "I've been waiting for this since the day you left."

Annabeth stepped back. "Dad, this is Percy Jackson. He's new. He's also one of my newer friends. Thought you could meet him."

Her dad raised an eyebrow. He was about to say something but got interrupted by a car horn. "Hurry up and haul ass." Someone called from inside.

"Sorry, my wife." Annabeth's dad apologized. "She's still not used to this whole thing."

"Argus, hey." Annabeth greeted a guy with glasses and grey hair. "Are you here to take Percy back?'

Argus nodded, not saying anything.

"He's mute." Annabeth whispered.

"Bye Annabeth. Hope to see you next summer." Before leaving, even though he was in front of her dad, Percy kissed Annabeth's cheek and ran.

"Can I grab my stuff?" Percy started walking with Argus so he could get his stuff so he could finally go home.

Percy had a hella lot of explaining to do to his mom.


	2. The Sea of Monsters

Gabe was gone.

Percy had to deal with him since the beginning of the school year but today he kind of just... Disappeared.

It was strange. Gabe never left. It was morning, which meant Sally was going to be forced to cook him breakfast. Gabe isn't gonna miss out on that

Percy almost had a heart attack when he saw a shadow in the window. He jumped at least fifteen feet. Percy ran to the window immediately.

Almost immediately, the shadow disappeared. Instead of inspecting it more, Sally, his mom, came out of her room.

"Where's Gabe?" Percy asked. As much as he hated the guy, where could he have gone? He hates Percy equally. Gabe wouldn't just leave.

"Don't worry about him." Sally said quickly. "Anyways, I don't think that it's safe to go to tutoring yet. I say wait a couple hoursdaysweeksmonths."

"What?" Percy asked for clarification. "I didn't catch that last part."

"It's fine. But it's not that safe to go to tutoring yet. Or any electronic devices."

"Mom, what's happening?" Don't get Percy wrong. He's glad if Gabe was gone for good. But if he just picked up and left... Something else is happening.

"Go." Percy was shoved out of the apartment by his mom. He wanted to warn her that a strange shadow was watching them in a window.

But, as much as he didn't want to, Percy had to get to school. He didn't want for Tyson or Grover to be by themselves having fun.

**_________________________________________**

Walking into school, Percy was getting the dirty glares from teachers. It's the last day of school, so anyone could do whatever they wanted to.

Which meant playing a free for all dodgeball game. Mr.Schell, the PE teacher, had promised that kids got to play what they wanted.

Of course, people like Matt Sloan and all of the people touring voted on a dodgeball game. Annabeth always hated Matt.

Even though she didn't go to the school, Percy told Annabeth all about everything that happened at school when he got home. It comforted him.

She hasn't mentioned anything about her new school, which was weird. Annabeth was crazy smart and loved school but she's not talking about it.

But the new kids... They're students from Maine who are touring the school to decide if they want to come to Merriweather Academy.

They look as big and mean as Matt. This doesn't look like it's going to go well for the people on the apposing side. Aka anyone who's not on Matt's good side.

"Where's Grover?" Tyson sniffed. "He didn't mention anything about being absent."

Tyson is basically too precious for this world. He's a lovable teddy bear who cries a lot an was homeless for a decade and two years before Merriweather adopted him.

He also has a scar on his for that he never liked talking about. No matter the weather, Tyson was always seem wearing shoes.

As much as Percy didn't want to admit it, Grover being absent scared Percy more then it probably should have.

First, Gabe was gone. Then, a mysterious shadow in the window. Next, Sally said not to go to tutoring soon. Now, Grover wasn't at school.

"So going down, Jackson." Matt Sloan muttered. "I hope you know how it's going to feel when this ball smashes into you."

One of the Maine kids, who's name tag read _Doomsday,_ laughed along. "Won't be the only thing smashing into you, Perseus."

Percy winced at his full name. Whenever he was in trouble, teachers would call him by the full name that Percy hates oh so dearly.

The only other people who call Percy by his full name are members of the very deadly gang called The Titans. But that's when...

Percy got a very strong feeling all of a sudden that the so called 'Maine transfers' were not actually from Maine. They're from something much stronger.

"Going down Jackson." The name tag this time read _Slade._ If Deathstroke is real then forget all of this. Percy the DC fanboy is out if that's what's happening.

 _Lex,_ another Maine guy grabbed a ball. The ball would light up for maybe less then a second then quickly dim again. Light up, and dim.

Something was inside. Percy needed to get everybody out of the gym so he can get his gun and attack the gang members. Why thirteen year olds anyways?

Seems like since Luke joined the gang that they've gotten stupider. Luke was already in his early twenties. Why have actual children join?

"Nope." Percy started running to his classmates. They didn't know what was maybe about to happen. "Face me. Head on, right now."

"Gladly." _Ra's,_ another Maine person grabbed a ball. Getting ready to throw the ball, Percy wanted to leave. He can't leave everybody alone.

As the ball flew across the gym, explosions happened. "Bombs." Percy muttered under his breath so nobody heard. "Why does it always have to be freaking bombs."

"Lockdown." Mr.Schell ran to get his walkie talkie so he can contact the principal to go on lockdown.

"Did Luke send you?" Percy taunted. "Or maybe Ares."

"Listen." Lex gave Percy a dirty look. "The Titans are better then you will ever be. Why try to act like you can actually beat them?"

Slade walked next to Lex. "Only thirteen but our minds are older."

Doomsday grabbed another ball. He aimed at the door. All the students stared running to the other door. They all successfully made it out.

Ra's smirked. "What's your baby friend doing?"

Percy felt bad. He had forgotten about Tyson. Poor guy was probably traumatized and scared all the way to death.

"Don't say that." At the mention of baby, Tyson got defensive. Tyson walked next to Percy. "I am not a baby."

"Oh yeah?" Slade challenged. "Then prove it."

Before Tyson could do anything he would regret, a golden knife went flying across the gym. It impaled itself into Slade's stomach before he collapsed.

"Run." Lex said before the remaining Maine tourist booked out of the school.

Percy turned around and saw one of his favorite people. "Annabeth." Percy muttered before going up to the blond and giving her a hug.

"Sorry for watching you through your window but we have to go." Annabeth announced very quickly.

"My window?" Percy repeated. _She_ was the shadow.

Annabeth ignored the question. She saw Tyson. "Hurry up and get outside." She pointed at Tyson. "Bring _him._

As Annabeth grabbed her knife, Percy decided not to disobey the very scary girl who was fully capable of using a knife.

**_________________________________________**

"My day has been very confusing." Percy whined as the three got into a taxi.

Annabeth told the driver the address. The driver nodded and started doing what a driver does: drive. "I thought Grover went to your school?"

"He wasn't here today. How has your school life been?" Percy quickly asked. He didn't want to worry for Grover. His best friend had to be okay.

"Awful." Annabeth shrugged. "I went back to tutoring in the winter. That's why I haven't described school in any of my recent emails."

"Pretty." Tyson mumbled. He still doesn't get that you can't blurt stuff like that at random. Homeless people don't get the same opportunity as most people do.

Surprisingly, Annabeth rolled her eyes. She didn't thank him or even crack a smile at Tyson. "Where did you find this guy anyways?"

"This guy is Tyson." Percy felt defensive for his friend. Yeah, Tyson isn't the most handsome but he shouldn't be insulted for it.

"Whatever." Annabeth motioned at the driver. "You can drop us off here."

The driver looked skeptical. "There's nothing here..." He quickly shut up after seeing the wad of cash that Annabeth pulled out.

"Bye." Annabeth pulled Percy out of the car quickly and let Tyson get out by himself. She still has a knife so she's scary.

"What's up with yo-" Percy cut himself off when he saw what was happening at camp.

Camp, tutoring, same thing. The place doesn't really have a preferred pronoun. It's a place and not a person. It can not get offended.

"We're having a little bit of difficulty, if you can't tell." Annabeth started running up Half Blood Hill.

It was what's on the hill that was starting to freak Percy out. The hill was on fire and maybe bulls were on the hill. It was hard to tell from this angle.

"What is that?" Percy started running alongside the blond.

"They're called Colchis Bulls. The Titans use them are decoys. We don't notice them until they bomb everything." Annnabeth explained.

"So basically they're so sneaky that no one notices them?" Percy was getting his gun ready, turning off safety.

"Yeah pretty much." Annabeth didn't even check to see if Tyson was running. "I think that's Clarisse."

Percy squinted at the blur of people running around. He immediately noticed Clarisse, one of the worse people you will ever meet.

"How do we stop them?" Percy asked after turning off safety.

"Disarm the bombs. It looks like only three have gone off, meaning that only one bull has so far has activated them."

"What do you mean by bulls?"

"The bulls dress up in costumes so they don't get recognized. We have no idea who's actually underneath the disguise."

Before Percy could ask why don't they take the bulls hostage, Tyson grabbed onto Percy's sleeve. "I think I found a bomb."

Percy grabbed Annabeth's arm to stop her running. "Tyson said he found a bomb."

Annabeth shrugged Percy's hand off of her arm. "Shoot it to disarm it if you actually trust him. I'll go and disarm what I can trust."

"Why are you acting like this?" But Annabeth was already gone by the time Percy called out to her. She already left to disarm her own bombs.

"Don't worry about her." Percy reassured his friend. "I have no idea why she's acting the way she is."

Tyson shrugged and pointed to the bomb once again. "When do these things go off? And how close do we have to be to disarm them?"

Percy silently cursed his best female friend. Annabeth hadn't explained any of the statistics, which was ironic since she loves that kind of stuff.

"Is it bad that I'm here?" Tyson quietly whispered. "Is that why the pretty girl hates me so much?"

"She doesn't hate you." Percy reassured him. "I really don't know why she's acting the way she is."

"Move it, Prissy." Clarisse shoved Percy as she passed by him.

"Do all the girls act mean?" Tyson asked.

As much as Percy wanted to deny it, only a couple of girls actually had hearts. Only some of them wanted to be nice. Only some of them he could trust.

"There." Tyson, once again, pointed to the bomb. Percy heard a gunshot, so he can only guess that Annabeth or someone else had disarmed one.

"Cover your ears, big guy." Percy clapped Tyson on the shoulder.

"I've heard gunshots many of times." Tyson explained. "I was homeless, you remember that right?"

Percy forgot about that. Still, he went to shoot the bomb. As Percy aimed, it seemed like everything stopped. He had to focus on where he was shooting.

"You don't need to cover your ears?" Tyson asked confused.

"Nah." Percy reassured. "I heard plently of gunshots last summer."

Last summer. Wow. That was a really crazy time when Grover was actually still around and didn't mysteriously disappear.

Finally, after stalling, Percy finally pulled the trigger. The bomb didn't make a noise as a gunshot was heard throughout the atmosphere.

"Not the loudest I've heard." Tyson commented.

"Hurry up." Annabeth, coming out of nowhere, pulled Percy away from Tyson and with her. "I need to explain to you what's going on."

"Where's Chiron?" Percy asked, concerned for his former teacher and now head director of Camp Half Blood Tutoring.

"That's exactly what I needed to tell you about." Annabeth looked down. "He's not exactly here anymore. I'll still let him explain everything."

"And Grover?"

Annabeth shook her head. "I don't know."

**_________________________________________**

It had been at least two weeks at tutoring and Chiron still wasn't back yet.

It made no sense as to why someone who was so loyal to defeating The Titans could be accused of aiding them. Chiron would never.

"At least that's why I heard." Annabeth was explaining. "And then there's something else, but that I'll show you when _he's_ not around."

If Annabeth was talking about Tyson or the new director, Percy couldn't really tell. All he knew is that Annabeth really disliked both.

The new tutoring director Tauntles, is just an absolute dick. He did not know how to do his job. Or anything else for that matter.

"So when can you tell me?" Percy asked slowly as he saw Clarisse paying close attention to him and Annabeth.

"Silence, campers!" Tauntles yelled. "I know you guys haven't done this in a while, but I wanted to bring it back for old times sake. Even if it may result in fatal injuries."

Annabeth paled. "No." She whispered.

"What?" Percy whispered back.

"I'm almost positive I know what he's talking about." Annabeth took a deep breath. "I really hope that I'm wrong."

Before Percy could ask, Tauntles answered his question. "The Chariot Races, of course. We'll race tomorrow and please try not to die in the process."

**_________________________________________**

After Annabeth explaining how dangerous the chariot races are, they decided to team up together and try to at least win.

Yeah, that's the only reason why Percy wanted to partner up with the smartest girl at tutoring. "Stop looking at me like that." Percy told Clarisse.

Clarisse smiled innocently. "I don't know what you mean."

Annabeth walked over, her blonde hair in her signature ponytail. "Clarisse, stop trying to take my partner."

"Why would I want to do that?" Clarisse smiled knowingly at the pair of thirteen year olds even though Clarisse was the same age.

"Can we have more than two people on a team?" Percy asked. He had an idea of someone who wasn't racing who could possibly.

"We're not getting Clarisse on the team if that's what you're suggesting." Annabeth said quickly.

"No not her." Percy was almost scared to tell her. "I was wondering, since he didn't want a team because no one wanted him, we could get Tyson."

Annabeth backed away from Percy a little bit. "Why do you want him to be with us so badly?"

"He's a nice guy." Percy tried to explain. "He's doesn't deserve the treatment that you've been giving him."

"And Thalia didn't deserve the treatment that his kind gave her." Annabeth's voice cracked. "I'm leaving. Go ahead and babysit him if you want."

As Annabeth walked away, Percy wanted to go after her. But he's letting her fall alone.

**_________________________________________**

"We got this big guy." Percy clamped Tyson's shoulder. "We're gonna show Annabeth that we don't need her to win."

"I saw Grover." Tyson said. "I got a video message showing how someone was going to marry Grover to get into the tutoring."

"I need to tell Annabeth. Excuse me." Percy excused himself. He found Annabeth tying something to her 'chariot', aka a cart with fancy gadgets.

"We need to talk." Percy tapped his friend's shoulder.

"I don't know if I want to talk with that thing around." Annabeth didn't even look back.

"It's about Grover."Percy whined.

Annabeth stood still. "Just go back to your chariot, Percy. We'll talk later, _after_ I win."

"To your chariots!" Tauntles called out happily.

"Bye." Percy muttered to the blonde girl. She was one of his best friends. He doesn't want to lose her by not talking to her.

**_________________________________________**

"We got to win this." Percy was telling Tyson as they got into their chariots.

"To impress the girl you've been talking with?" Tyson smirked. He may cry a lot and be a little slow, but he for sure could figure something like that out.

"Not exactly." Tyson rubbed the back of his neck.

"Go!" Tauntles yelled, giving no warning to the racers.

The chariots all went. Everyone was speeding towards the front in hope of getting a prize. Tauntles didn't even announce the prize...

"Holy crap." Percy called out as a baton went in between his shirt and flannel.

"I may be nice," Silena Beauguard smiled sweetly. "But I'm not that nice."

Charles Beckendorf hit Silena's baton away from Percy. "Damn, that's a girl."

"Tyson stay in control!" Probably wasn't a good idea to have Tyson controlling the chariot when he could easily lose control."

"Your friend is attacking me!" Tyson yelled back. I looked back and sure enough, Annabeth was trying to hit Tyson with her own baton.

"He really shouldn't be here. I'm being too nice." Annabeth put her baton in between the gas and Tyson's foot. The chariot started spinning.

"This girl must be out of her goddamn mind." Percy muttered before running to Tyson. "I'll help." Percy took Tyson's spot at the wheel.

"Good, so now I have to fight you." She muttered, blowing a strand of hair out of her face. "This shouldn't be hard. Tyson was harder, actually."

"Kinda rude to assume that because Tyson is bigger then me." Percy used his fist to fight against Annabeth's baton.

"No, that's not why." Annabeth looked down for a second. "I know that Tyson has more experience at this then you do."

"How could you possibly know that?" Percy asked, not listening to her lies.

"Thalia. It's Ty-" her face fell when she saw something coming towards her. Percy quickly pulled her from her chariot and into his.

Silena's chariot had lost control or something because at the moment it was spinning towards their chariot.

The last thing Percy saw before blacking out was Tyson trying to use his body to shield Percy and Annabeth.

**_________________________________________**

"You still drool in your sleep." Annabeth said when Percy fully regained consciousness.

"What?" Percy asked for clarification. He didn't appreciate it when someone who's mean to his friends decides to joke around.

"I need to show you something." Annabeth got up from her bed. Percy barely realized that they were both in the infirmary.

"Where's Tyson at?" Percy looked around the infirmary in a panic.

"He's fine if you're looking for that freak." Annabeth muttered.

"You, yourself, get called a freak so much." Percy told her. "Why are you acting like the people who constantly put you down."

"Because unlike you and me," Annabeth started. "I'm simply telling the truth. I need to show you something. Can we go now? Please don't make this any harder."

Even though he didn't want to, Percy wasn't about to be oppressed. He had to listen to whatever Annabeth was going to say.

"Okay." Percy stood up, feeling a little wobbily but standing up nonetheless. "You do what you gotta do, dude."

Annabeth chuckled a little bit. "This is important, though. This is the reason that Chiron hasn't been here and why you need to see it alone."

Percy perked upat the sound of Chiron's name. He didn't want to think that anything bad had happened to his former mentor.

"Show me whatever you need to if it has to deal with Chiron." Percy let Annabeth drag him away by the arm.

**_________________________________________**

"We aren't supposed to be here." Annabeth quickly explained when she stopped in front of a door. "Me and Luke would sneak in here a lot. This place is meaningful."

Of course a meaningful place was a place that both Annabeth and Luke shared. They usually share most special places together. Luke is an asshole.

Basically, Luke decided to betray the place that raised him because he wanted the power to overthrow the president. He wants to take over the world, long story shor

Another long story short: Annabeth had a huge crush on Luke. It kind of scared Percy because if Luke likes her back and she's a minor...

"Why can't we be here?" Percy asked to get his mind off what could possibly happen between his best friend and someone irrelevant.

"We were instructed not to as soon as Thalia fell into her coma." Annabeth gripped the handle of the door. "But you need to see what happened. I should probably explain first."

"Tell me whatever you need to." Percy wanted to reassure her that she could talk to him about anything if she ever needed to.

"When Thalia was dy-" she looked behind Percy. "I thought you understood that I didn't want him to be here. What the hell Percy?"

"What?" Percy looked behind him and saw what she was so angry about. "I didn't know he was going to follow me."

Tyson sheepishly rubbed the back of his neck. "Sorry for intruding, but I wanted to tell you guys that someone had just left this room. He was blond."

"Oh my god." Annabeth started playing with her necklace. "Luke took the last of the stuff that could heal Thalia. She's going to die."

"Slow down." Percy tried to act calm even though he didn't know what was happening. "Why is she going to die?"

"Luke came a couple days ago and stole the stuff that kept Thalia alive. He left barely enough to keep her." Annabeth's eyes watered.

"So now she may die?" Percy already learned that this girl was his cousin. Was he supposed to accept his blood may be on the verge of dying?

"There's something that may work. But we would have to sneak out of here if we do so." Annabeth started whispering.

"Actually I don't believe that you're sneaking anywhere." Tauntles had arrived in the doorway. "I already sent Clarisse to get the mirakuro."

"Why her?" Annabeth asked in disbelief. "I think anyone but her would've been perfect for the job. Why choose someone like Clarisse?"

Tauntles strolled over to Annabeth and placed his arm on hers. "Because I wanted you to stay here. I don't think it's right for pretty girls like you to go out alone."

Disgusted, Percy put himself in between Annabeth and the much older man. "Look, my cousin is dying and if we're leaving then let us be."

Tauntles didn't move. So Percy grabbed Annabeth by the arm and started running out. Tauntles whispered something into a walkie talkie.

"I hope you know where you're going." Annabeth said as they ran.

"No idea." Percy started running faster to the boarder of tutoring. "Tyson, do you have any idea?"

"Yep." Tyson grabbed both Percy and Annabeth's arm. Annabeth took his hand off of hers. "I know exactly where to find the mirakuro."

"I know." Annabeth, being the faster of the three, ran in front. "I think I know where both Grover and the mirakuro is at."

Percy looked back and noticed five people running at them. "Would be appreciated if you gave us that location now."

"It's on the other freaking side of tutoring. Tyson led us the wrong way." Annabeth, because she was the second tallest after Tyson, would be at a disadvantage.

Percy, being the shortest, would have the best chance. "Here." He grabbed his friends' arms and started sprinting in the direction of the woods.

"Are you trying to get us killed?" Annabeth yelled as a guard tried to claw at her leg.

"I'm trying to save your best friend and my cousin." Percy started running to the canoe lake. "Are we going to sail away?"

Annabeth nodded. "Exactly that."

Tyson was falling behind. "C'mon Tyson, we gotta go faster."

But Percy could tell that poor Tyson was tiring himself at the speed he was going at now. He couldn't push Tyson for much longer.

"We have to go to the Bermuda Triangle. It sounds like a bad idea but I assure you it's not." Annabeth said as she was getting a canoe ready.

"Whatever you say." Tyson had finally caught up, clearly out of breath. "You're the smart one."

As much as Annabeth hated Tyson for a mysterious reason, she seemed to not want to leave Tyson. "Get in the boat and do not talk."

While leaving tutoring, Percy wondered if he would live long enough to bring his cousin back what she needed to survive.

**_________________________________________**

"Can you explain where we're going?" Percy asked Annabeth as he was told to sail south to the Bermuda Triangle. Which was over one thousand miles away.

"Are we even going to survive long enough to get to the Bermuda Triangle?" Tyson questioned, picking at a strand on his _Camp Half-Blood Tutoring_ shirt.

"I don't know." Annabeth hated not knowing. "All I know is that we have to get to the BT so we can get the mirakuro. It's a miracle drug, apparently."

"Can you explain this miracle drug?" Percy tried challenging.

"It's this drug. We know it for sure exist. What we don't know is if it could work. It's a trail and error. It works on some people." Annabeth hesitated. "It kills others."

"So you guys hesitated using it," Percy started. "Because you didn't know if it would kill or cure Thalia?"

Annabeth nodded. "If it works,it would wake her. If it doesn't work, she's dead. There is no in between because it's a live or die thing."

"And even if it did work," Tyson started playing with the water. "She wouldn't wake up right away. It would take maybe a work for Thalia to actually wake up."

Percy was very confused, something he was often. "How do you know so much about this mirakuro."

"I told you." Annabeth didn't meet Percy's eyes. "Tyson is way more experienced at this than you are." She fixed her eyes on something behind Tyson. "Wait."

"What?" Percy turned around a saw a boat coming towards them. No, not a boat. It was a luxurious yacht. One that was sailing towards the canoe.

"I recognize that yacht." Annabeth shook her head. "I didn't think that Luke would have ever taken money from the business. He has to be desperate."

"Huh?" Percy asked. He's still fairley new to this whole gang thing. He didn't know Luke's backstory. Or anything except that the guy hated everything but himself.

"Luke's dad is the CEO and owner of U.P.S. Luke hates taking stuff from his dad because he doesn't like his dad." Annabeth looked at the yacht. "I've only seen that boat once."

"We can't sail to land?" Tyson asked. "Like, we go to land and make Luke chase us. Except we leave and go a different route. Still Bermuda Triangle, but not by boat."

"No, you don't understand." Annabeth started looking panicked. "If Luke can find us, he either has a tracker on one of us or he's going in the same direction that we are."

"Why would he..." It then dawned on Percy that the reason that Luke is going in the same direction is to get the same thing that they are.

"Tyson." Annabeth addressed. "What's your last name?"

Percy always found it cool that he and Tyson had the same last name. They're always together in line while Grover was thrown into the back.

"We share a last name." Tyson said quickly. "I know why, but I don't think that Percy does."

Percy furrowed his eyebrows. "Percy doesn't know what?"

"Referring to self in first person." Percy turned and saw Luke standing on the yacht with a bull horn. "And you guys say that I'm self conceded."

"At least we're not trying to take over the world." Annabeth yelled back. "What would your mother say about this."

"My mother is irrelevant." Luke said calmly. "She's not important. No, what's important is the team that you decided to travel with."

Annabeth glanced at Tyson. "I didn't choose to travel with him. I let him join for Percy. I think you have an idea on why."

Luke laughed. "Oh my goodness. I knew you were gonna be desperate to get the mirakuro but I did not think that you would travel with someone like him."

"Go to hell you bastard." Percy yelled to defend his best friend. "I know that you aren't that great yourself so I suggest that you shut up."

"You don't even know what you're talking about." If possible, Luke had made the bull horn louder so he can hear his own voice better.

Annabeth started shaking. "You're dishonoring Thalia's memory."

Luke shook his head and scoffed. "Talking about dishonoring Thalia's memory. Look at who's on your team. Look at who you're traveling with."

"I shouldn't have come." Tyson mumbled.

Percy's heart felt heavy when he heard that. "I am going to off Luke I swear."

"I didn't know any better." Annabeth mumbled. "If I had known that Tauntles was watching us we could've sneaked out at a better time. Without Tyson."

"I know where Grover's at, by the way." Luke smiled cruelly. "He went to look for the mirakuro when he heard rumors of Thalia. That didn't work out for him."

"Where is he?" Percy pushed himself to the front of the canoe. No one is going to harm Grover or any of his friend and get away with it."

"Ask the freak." Luke pointed to Tyson. "I'm gonna let you guys do the hard part. And Annabeth, you know that Thalia would join me if she was still here. "

Annabeth clearly didn't want to hear whatever Luke had to say. All she did was look at the ground and sniffle. Her face was getting red. Was she crying?

"Annabeth." Luke said again. This time Annabeth looked up. "Next time you say that _I'm_ dishonoring Thalia, look in the mirror."

As Luke sailed away, Annabeth tackled Percy in a hug and started crying. Luke was reminding Percy of the Sirens. The ones whose words made people die.

"Land." Annabeth whispered after her mini panic attack. "We've got to get to land. I know a place where we can go."

Everyone stayed silent as they sailed to the land.

**_________________________________________**

In the middle of the woods on land, Percy had no idea how Annabeth could possibly know of a place where they an go. That would be away from Luke.

But Annabeth knew exactly where to go. She stayed in front, leading the way. She took many turns. She knew what she was doing, unlike Percy.

When Annabeth stopped walking, she looked around quickly. "I bet that he remembers this place." She muttered, probably for only herself to hear.

"Hey Tyson, could you go look for maybe somewhere to eat." Percy didn't want to explain that he wanted to be alone with Annabeth. That might get a suggestive look.

Tyson understood. He nodded. "I'll come back if I find anything."

Percy wasn't paying attention to Annabeth. When he looked back, he was face to face with a hole that had guns, knives, crowbars, and just about anything a tutor could need.

"Did you make this?" Percy asked in awe of his best friend.

Annabeth nodded. "Me, Luke and..." she paused. "Thalia. We made these when we were on the run. We have at least three dozens of these." She put a blanket over the opening of the hole.

"What was she like?" Percy asked. "Thalia, I mean."

"She was amazing. She was one of the best friends that I've ever had. She was five years older than me but we got along like a dream. She was my first friend, in a way."

"Is it true that she would have joined Luke in The Titans?"

Annabeth though about this. "You get angry at your dad for leaving you and your mom. Thalia got angry too. Would you betray everyone you love because of that?"

Percy shook his head. "No I would not."

"Then she wouldn't either. Case closed. We just have to get the mirakuro if we even want to make sure that Thalia lives through the night."

"What did Luke mean when he said that you're dishonoring Thalia with the team that you're traveling with?"

"You know who you remind me of the most?" Annabeth narrowed her eyes. " _Thalia._ You guys are so alike it's scary. You would've either been best friends or teared each other apart."

"We're biological cousins," Percy started. "I'm gonna go with best friends. But what did he mean by dishonoring her?"

"The real reason Thalia fell into her coma." Annabeth looked away. "The night that it happene-"

Tyson jumped into the hole. How did he find it? Annabeth put a blanket over the opening. "I found a place where we can eat. I've got fifty bucks, by the way."

How an eighth grader somehow ended up with fifty dollars is way beyond Percy, especially since Tyson was homeless and lived on the streets.

"Course you do." Annabeth started climbing out of the hole. "Both of you, grab a weapon."

Percy looked at her. "What about you?"

Annabeth patted a golden knife at her side. "I already have mine."

Tyson led the way. "The only thing I could fine is a place called Monster Donuts, and it's pretty deserted in case that helps."

"Workers?" Annabeth asked.

"There's only like, two." Tyson replied.

"That works for me." Percy says as he looks at a highway.

On the other side of the high way, a building had neon letters. Even though he has dyslexia, Percy was able to read the sign that read, _Monster Donuts._

"This seems kind of sketchy." Annabeth mumbled.

"You think that Tyson's sketchy." Percy reminded.

She rolled her eyes, which Percy expected. As the trio enter the restaurant, Percy realizes that the place was not deserted like Tyson had said it was.

"Deserted, did you say?" Annabeth raised an eyebrow. "Only two workers." She whispered.

In every booth except one, someone was there. Every person had a newspaper, which seemed odd as it was the twenty first century. Who reads newspapers these days?

Walking in felt very awkward with at least fifteen pairs of eyes on very underage teenagers. Percy knows that the police would be called if they acted suspicious enough.

"Hello, Perseus." Percy turned around when he heard his full name. Almost no one would call him by that name unless he was in trouble or...

"Let's go." Annabeth started grabbing both Tyson and Percy by the arm even though she was very uncomfortable with the physical contact. "We'll find somewhere else to eat."

"Monster Donuts has quality service." Said someone without looking up from their newspaper. "Why don't you three stay a while?"

The lady across from that person smiled. "Yes. Tyson, Annabeth and Perseus. Why don't you all stay? Monster Donuts would be happy to serve you."

"Run." Annabeth started running with the two boys in her arms.

Something shattered above her head. An employee was smiling sweetly. "Monster Donuts has food so good that you can't leave."

"I'm allergic to donuts." Tyson lied.

"Too bad." A different employee threw a cup at Annabeth. It shattered against her arm as she tried to block it from Percy's face.

"Motherfuc-" she started to curse when the blow landed. Her arm started to bleed.

"Why protect me from that?" Percy pulled out his gun and used that to start blocking flying cups. "Use a gun."

"One," Annabeth started touching the blood. "I was thinking quickly. Two, you would've done the same if that cup was coming towards me."

"True." Percy agreed.

"I have an idea." Tyson spoke. He grabbed Annabeth's good arm and Percy and started to quietly lead them to the door.

"Funny how you think that's gonna work." A newspaper person shouted as he started to shoot with a gun.

Tyson was quick to push the two kids outside before exiting himself. "That seemed way too easy."

"Agreed." Annabeth agreed as she touched her arm.

"Hey idiots." All three looked up and found themselves face to face with someone they didn't expect to see.

**_________________________________________**

"Clarisse?" All three of them yelled.

"Yeah, didn't Tauntles tell you that he chose me to get the mirakuro?" Clarisse smirked. "We gotta fix your arm by the way. Let's go."

Walking, Clarisse was explaining all the really cool and awesome things that she had done while wiping the blood from Annabeth's arm.

"How do you have the exact materials needed to mend her arm?" Asked Tyson.

"Unlike you guys, I actually had time to prepare and get supplies." Clarisse explained. "Okay, blood is cleaned. All we need now is a bandage."

"Cut the crap, what do you need?" Percy knew that Clarisse wouldn't willingly help.

"I need help." Clarisse admitted. "Look, all I've been doing is sailing and now my engine is getting heated. I need to fix it and I figured you would be good."

"What's in it for us?" Tyson exclaimed.

"I did just fix Annabeth's arm." Clarisse finished bandaging her arm. "It would be a dick move if I help you then you refuse to return the favor."

"We'll help." Annabeth locked eyes with Percy so he knew. "After that, you're letting us go out on our own. We're the right team to save Thalia."

Clarisse scoffed. "Right team. Your team consist of Tyson. As long and you're near Tyson the team is not right."

"Annabeth," Percy started. "What does sh-"

"Let's hurry up and fix your stupid engine." Annabeth looked at the ground, not daring to look at Tyson.

"I'm sorry." Tyson apologized.

"What's going on with Tyson and why does everyone hate him?" Percy wanted to know why anyone could ever hate someone like Tyson.

"Stop." Clarisse didn't even look when she was talking. She started walking while the trio stayed behind. "Aren't you guys coming?"

The three had no choice but to follow.

**_________________________________________**

"This is not getting better anytime soon, just saying." Percy said as he saw Clarissa's engine.

Did Percy mention that Clarisse got a super cool ship? Like a full on boat with bedrooms and a huge engine took that reminded Percy of Heathers.

"I noticed." Clarisse replied. "Look, this is embarrassing enough can you please fix the damn thing?"

"Fine." Percy rolled his eyes. He grabbed a wrench and went to work. He was good at fixing anything that had to do with the sea. It was a skill.

"What?" Percy was confused when he noticed that a control in the engine was not how he had left it about five minutes ago.

"Was that screw supposed to be unscrewed?" Tyson asked in a panic.

"Yeah. It would let the steam out so that the engine could cool down." Percy fought a terrible feeling. Was the ship about to...

"I thought the loose screw was what was making the engine heat up." Tyson's voice started cracking. "I really screwed up."

"Did you...?" Annabeth started to ask. She glanced at Clarisse and noticed that the brunette was looking like she was about to cry.

"Tyson," Annabeth grabbed Tyson's shoulders. "Tell the truth. Did you or did you not put the screw back into place? Do not lie to me."

Everyone watched. Tyson was one of Percy's best friends. He really couldn't have done that on purpose. Tyson didn't know what he was doing.

Right?

"I'm really sorry." Tyson broke out into a sob. "I tried to help. I really tried to help but it turned out I might end up killing everyone in here."

"How do we stop this from exploding?" Clarisse asked calmly. Was she not panicked for her ship?

"Only one way." Percy started looking at the engine more carefully. "But then that way might either stop it from blowing up or it blows up immediately."

"Do we risk it?" Annabeth crouched next to Percy. "I mean, I can definitely try to fix this as long as you three end up going for the mirakuro."

"And save Grover." Tyson added.

"No." Percy said simply. "I am not letting you attempt to fix this. We all know this can only be fixed one way."

"Then I'll do it." Tyson stopped his crying momentarily. "I've caused trouble and it was a mistake to let me come here anyways."

"Tyson..." Annabeth put a hand over her mouth. "I'm sorry about the way I was treating you. I just couldn't really get ove-"

"Thalia," Tyson cut her off. "Yeah, I know why you're bitter. I would be too if I was you. You don't have to be sorry about that. It was my mistake."

"What's happening?" Percy asked. Once again, he's left in the dark about almost everything that is important and/or crucial.

"Let me redeem myself." Tyson grabbed Annabeth's hands. She didn't flinch or take her hands away. "I want to make this up to her."

Clarisse put a hand on the blond's shoulder. "I say we let him. He might even make it out alive and then the ship will be repaired."

"Tyson," Percy addressed. "Do you already know how to repair one of these?"

"It's what almost killed Annabeth." Tyson smiled.

Before Percy got to question anything, he and the two girls were quickly shoved out of the engine room. Percy could feel the heat already.

"We need to get off this ship completely." Clarisse grabbed the two by their arms.

"We can't just leave Tyson." Percy protested. Even though Tyson apparently almost killed Annabeth, he still couldn't leave him behind.

"We're gonna have to." As if Annabeth's words were on que, Percy heard a loud explosion just before his vision went completely dark.

**_________________________________________**

Percy couldn't feel his body. All he felt was the pain in his heart when he saw that the ship was on fire.

"Let's go." Clarisse said urgently. She grabbed both Percy and Annabeth by the arm and started pulling them away from the fire.

"What the hell?" Percy tried pulling himself away. "We're not going to leave Tyson here. If he's alive he's gonna be looking."

"And if hes not?" Clarisse's voice cracked as if she really felt emotions. "This thing is gonna go again if we don't get our asses away."

"Percy," Annabeth's eyes softened. "I know you don't want to but I need you to understand that if he's alive he knows where to go. Tyson knows all about this kind of stuf-"

She cut herself off. She looked around like crazy. "Where did she go?"

"What?" Percy asked. Then he noticed it... "Where did Clarisse go?"

"Stealth." Annabeth groaned very loudly. "She left when we were talking. What the actual hell?"

"Calm down." Percy put his hands on her shoulder. "We wanted to be alone anyways."

"I guess." Annabeth took a deep breath. She was going through so much emotional pain with Thalia. And whatever Tyson did.

"Boat?" Percy grabbed his best friend's hand. He started leading her to the boat. He is not about to let her deal with something like this alone.

"We need to get the mirakuro by tomorrow at latest." Annabeth started getting on the canoe. She turned on the engine.

"Can you tell me," Percy felt the canoe start moving. "About what happened to Thalia and how an exploding ship almost killed you?"

Annabeth let out a broken laugh. "A group of children were sent to me, Luke, Thalia and Grover back when I was seven to get us off task."

"And...?" Percy kept going.

"They told me that my dad was hurt. Thalia was told her mom wanted her back. Luke got told that his dad went back home. Grover said that he would've gotten his uncle back." Annabeth said.

"Did you believe them?" Percy asked.

"They were my same age, seven. Of course I believed them. They were children and so innocent. We were on a goose hunt for a week."

"What happened after?"

"Because of how much time we spent checking on our families, the people who wanted to kill us caught up. The children who told us lies are the reason that Thalia is dead."

"What happened to those kids?"

Annabeth smiled weakly. "Well, one of them just might've died from an exploding ship."

"You mean..." the realization hit Percy quickly. He stayed silent for the rest of the boat ride.

**_________________________________________**

"What is that?" Annabeth pointed out an island in the distance.

"An islan-"

Before Percy could finish his sentence Annabeth cut him off. "I know it's an island but I'm debating if we should go over and see what's on it."

"Screw it." Percy simpily started rowing in the general direction of the island. Turns out, it was not that deserted. He saw a huge building.

"Still wanna go?" Annabeth raised an eyebrow.

"Screw it." Percy parked the canoe on the beach surrounding the island. He saw a giant sign that, despite Dyslexia, Percy understood as _O_ _IROE'G IGLAND_

Okay, maybe a few letters got a little mumble jumble. Annabeth too was squinting at the letters. "Times like these we need Grover."

That was incrediblely true. They need that one friend who can actually read and write. "Hello!" Percy turned to the source of the new voice.

It was a girl. A tall girl with a braid down the side. "Hello, my name is Hylla. How may I help your stay here at Circe's Island?"

"I don't think we should stay." Percy whispered. "This seems like a really bad idea."

"We didn't book anything," Annabeth started. "So we're just gonna start to leave now. Thank you through, for all of your service."

But Hylla grabbed the two teenagers by the shoulders. "No worries, we can fit you in at anytime."

"We don't hace any money." Percy mused.

"No worries, can can fit you into the free package." Hylla led them into the only and biggest building.

"What package is free?" Annabeth asked as they got led into a white room with nothing in it.

Hylla smiled sweetly. "Reyna, honey, please fetch me my hair brush."

A girl about ten or eleven comes into the room with a plate. In the plate is a pink hair brush. Hylla grabs the brush and the little girl leaves.

"So what are we gonna do?" Percy got pretty awkward only standing.

"Oh honey..." Hylla smiled. "Death will forever be free." Hylla pulled the comb part out of the brush to reveal a knife.

"Run." Both Percy and Annabeth said at the same time.

"Men are disgusting." Hylla was chasing behind. "Everybody here is a lesbian, Annabeth. Why don't you join us and let me deal with the boy."

"Thanks." Annabeth panted out. "But no thanks."

"Stop." Hylla didn't have her tour guide voice anymore. She had a serious tone. Percy looked back and noticed that Hylla had stopped.

Before he knew it, Hylla was throwing her knife at the pair of teenagers. "What the actual hell?" Percy cried out, looking at the knife on the ground.

"Unless you want to die," Annabeth grabbed his arm and started running faster then she already was. "I suggest you go faster."

Percy ignored all of the knives that girls threw at hin and Annabeth. He took Annabeth's suggestion and started running faster.

Another ship was now docked out on the beach. "Take it." Annabeth said as she ran to the larger boat.

Not looking back at the killer lesbians, Percy and Annabeth started speeding away, back to the task on getting the mirakuro.

**_________________________________________**

"How did a boat explosion almost kill you?" Percy realized he never asked that question the first time he interrogated his best friend.

"It's kind of a funny story." Annabeth laughed. She was being sarcastic.

"Can I know this funny story?" Percy asked her.

Annabeth nodded. "If you really want to change your opinion about me. This story sounds horrible on my part, and only Luke, Thalia, Grover and Chiron know."

"And now me too." Percy smiled. He put a hand on her knee. "Hey, you can tell me anything. I will never judge you because I know it was absolutely necessary."

"I guess." Annabeth took a death breath in. "There was really only one way to get rid of the children. Tyson, and a few others."

"Okay, does this explain how they were defeated?" Percy asked.

Annabeth nodded. "This is the reason why Tyson is homeless. His mom was part of the gang. Luke ended up turning them into the police."

"So what happened to Tyson?"

"We managed to get all of the children under Tyson's house, where their was a boiler room. We needed to get rid of them. They were called Cyclops."

"You didn't kill them, did you?"

"No, but I stabbed a ten year old in the foot when I was barley seven. Thalia didn't realize that I was still in the boiler room."

"Did she eventually notice?"

"Luke did. Their was only fifteen seconds before the bomb went off, and he risked everyone's life to get me. We made it back with three seconds to spare."

"Damn. Did they all survive?"

"Yeah. Just all injured. Tyson was homeless since we exploded their house." Annabeth started touching the water.

"Look," Percy made Annabeth look at him. "I'm not judging you at all for what you did maybe six years ago. I would have done the same if I was you."

"And then he tried to disarm that bomb by almost killing himself." Annabeth let a tear fall. "I was so rude and harsh to him and he might've died to save us."

"What does he have to do with Thalia's coma?" Percy asked cautiously.

"We spent a while making sure all of our family was okay. A week to be exact. With all that time, the baddies ended up catching up."

"And...?"

"And by the time we got to tutoring everyone who wanted to kill us was able to catch up. The Cyclops slowed us down. I also haven't been completly honest with you."

"Why's that?" Annabeth couldn't have been lying about something. Right?

"The reason you and Tyson share a surname. You guys have the same dad, but not mom." Annabeth turned away to let Percy process this.

"What's that?" Percy wanted to get his mind off of Tyson. He didn't want to believe that his dad had another family, even though Percy already knew that.

Why would his dad have a family with a gang member? Did his dad leave when the house was blown up? Or when Tyson was born?

"I think," Annabeth squinted. "That that island is the island where the mirakuro is being held."

**_________________________________________**

They sailed to the island. Not one word was exchanged. Percy wanted to feel petty by himself. He couldn't handle the thought.

How could he and Tyson be related? And how could he not know? Did his mom know? Is that why Sally was always in love with Tyson?

"I know that the mirakuro is gonna be on a submarine on the island." Annabeth got off of the boat.

"Grover?" Percy felt bad. He hadn't really thought about Grover. Not remembering a best friend is missing does seem kind of messed up.

"He should be here." Annabeth helped Percy out of the canoe. "But do we really wanna trust Luke? I don't know. Let's see if he's actually here."

"How much time does Thalia have?" Percy had been scared to ask Annabeth that question. He didn't want to upset her more than she was.

Annabeth shrugged. "I really don't know and it's freaking scary. This is the one thing I don't know. I really hate not knowing."

"I know." Percy wrapped his arms around his worrying best friend. "I know. I especially know that we are going to save Thalia and find Grover."

"There's one thing that I don't know, and I hate it." Annabeth admitted.

"What?" Percy asked.

"A drug this powerful? And no one has found it yet? There's either someone blocking it or it's already gone. Imagine if it's gone..."

"It's not gone." Percy reassured. "It can't be gone. How many other guys probably got killed by those girls on Circe's island or even by sailing."

"I guess." Annabeth untangled herself from the hug. "We have to go. We can't be wasting time. We have to hurry because a life is on the line."

"Did Clarisse make it here?" Percy asked even though he knew the answer. A cliff was not too far. Percy could hear the shouting from the ground though.

"We have to climb that." It was not a question. Annabeth decided that they were gonna climb that so now they're gonna climb a cliff.

Walking to the cliff, Percy couldn't help but wonder if this was his life. Being a teenager but still having to stuff like climbing a cliff.

An eighth grader who's still in middle school should not be worrying about whether or not a gang member is going to kill him.

Starting the climb, Annabeth went first, which was understandable. She was Thalia's best friend. Percy doubts that Thalia ever knew he exitsed.

Annabeth's foot slipped. She luckily found footing again. Unluckily, that was in Percy's face. "Sorry." She apologized.

"No sweat." Percy was tired and restless.

He didn't want to go on. But this was for his cousin. Reaching the top of the cliff, Percy and Annabeth were panting and sweating.

They broke out in a bigger sweat when they both saw Grover Underwood in a wedding dress.

**_________________________________________**

"What the hell?" Both Percy and Annabeth said in unison.

Someone who Grover was talking to started to growl. "The wedding was supposed to be three days ago!"

"Wedding?" Percy and Annabeth shouted very loudly.

The person, who Percy barley noticed had a tuxedo on, turned in the general direction that they were in. "Who was that?"

Grover's eyes widened. A smile broke out on his face. "Those are the wedding guests, my dear." Grover ran over to where the pair were.

"Who said that?" Tuxedo man looked around.

"My father, dear." Grover made his voice go up in pitch. Grover sounded almost identical to a girl. "The guest for the wedding are here."

"Grover." Again, in unison, Percy and Annabeth hugged the crap out of Grover in silence.

"Let me explain." Percy turned and found himself face to face with Clarisse. When had she shown up? Was she really better off by herself?

"I need to plan the wedding." Grover whispered. "Clarisse will explain everything. She knows what's been happening."

"Coming, my dear." Grover went back into female voice mode.

"That's Polyphemus." Clarisse started to whisper. "He found Grover here, and Grover didn't have an escape plan. He pretended to be a girl and Polyphemus proposed."

"How did Grover fool Polyphemus into believing he was a girl?" Annabeth asked in amazement.

"He's blind." Clarisse looked behind herself. "He's believed to have been sent by The Titans to find the mirakuro but because of his blindness, he got lost."

"Why was Grover here?" Percy wanted to know why one of his best friends was in a dangerous situation.

"After Luke stole the first set of equipment," Annabeth started. "Grover said he was gonna look for it. I was at tutoring when he was sent."

"My guess is that Grover wanted to come look for the mirakuro but was denied permission. So, he came looking for it on his own." Clarisse guessed.

"And now he's pretty much screwed because he promised a gang member that he will marry him and love him forever." Percy concluded.

"Basically, yeah." Clarisse agreed.

Percy thought about that kind of commitment. To forever love and protect someone. That seemed like a hard promise to keep.

Maybe that's why his parents never married.

"Alright then." Percy pulled out his gun and stood up, despite how freaking tired he was. "Let's go and save Grover's ass."

**_________________________________________**

That was way easier said than done.

A sneak attack wasn't that hard. The big dude was blind. How could he possibly notice that three people he didn't know of were there?

Of course, Percy forgot about how excellent hearing that blind people possess. Polyphemus was able to hear perfectly.

Annabeth was speeding up but the bandage from her arm was coming undone. She ignored it and ended up tripping on it.

"Who goes?" Polyphemus asked Grover.

"My brother." Grover looked directly at Percy. Did he mean... "My sister." He looked at Annabeth. "And the annoying cousin." Grover looked at Clarisse.

"Did he just...?" Annabeth had the biggest smile on her face. Yeah, they always thought of Grover as a sibling but no one had ever said it out loud.

"I think he did." Percy's hand automatically want to Annabeth's.

"He did." Clarisse crossed her arms. She didn't seem happy but that didn't stop Percy from having a humongous smile plastered on his face.

"Will the honey moon be before or after the wedding?" Polyphemus asked in a low voice.

Everyone's eyes went wide. Everyone knows what happens during a honey moon. And Grover is _not_ about to go through that.

Grover squeaked. "Um, I think it's time I tell you the truth before we go anywhere too deep." He let out a breath. He smoothed out his wedding dress.

"Screw this wedding." Grover took his knife out and cut the dress.

"Go Grover!" Percy recognized that voice from somewhere. He turned and was more than happy to see who the mysterious person was.

"Tyson makes an entrance!" Tyson ran from the edge of the cliff.

"Tyson!" Percy ran to Grover and enveloped him in a hug. "When did you come back? And how?"

"Not important." Tyson shrugged off the question. "But I brought something even more important." Tyson help up a syringe with a purple liquid.

"Is that..." Percy couldn't even finish his sentence with how excited he was that his biological brother is alive and well and living.

"Mirakuro!" Clarisse yelled.

"Quiet down." Annabeth pointed out, but it was too late.

Polyphemus loudly sniffed. "Do you mistake me for imbecile? I know that you are not alone, honey. Why have you really post poned the wedding?"

"I don't really want to be with you anymore." Grover changed his voice back to male. "In fact: I never wanted to be with you."

Polyphemus gasped. "If I can not have you then nobody will. I will kill everyone who ever loves you now!"

"Run." Tyson put Grover on his back to give him a piggy back ride. That was nice since he had probably just almost died and came from hell's doorstep.

_All I remembered was getting knocked out. To this day, if you ask me what happened or how we got off the island, I will not know._

_Annabeth says that Polyphemus threw a rock at me. Grover says that I wasn't keeping up and Clarisse got tired of me and punched me._

_All I remember is the boat ride home when I woke up. The boat ride that Tyson admitted that he knew that we were siblings._

_I wish I had known. Then again, I probably would have seperated myself from him. I don't want that to happen. No one wants that to happen to them._

_I wish I could tell you what happened. But for now, I'm left retelling you this story from this tape recorder. At least it's what I wrote._

_I don't know if I lived to tell my story._

**_________________________________________**

"How do we get back?" Percy asked after he woke up. All he wanted was for him and his friends to go back to camp in peace.

"I actually have no idea." Annabeth admitted. She's always the one with ideas. But if she doesn't have one then she's really stumped.

"We're on a boat, idiots." Clarisse scoffed.

"Yeah but we don't know what direction we're hearing." Annabeth told her back.

"Doesn't matter." Clarisse started to speed towards land. "See, we're sailing to Florida. Tyson has enough money to get us all sketchy plane rides."

"Why sketchy?" Tyson asked.

"Because that's all we can afford." Clarisse responded.

Of course that's all that's affordable. It's all five people could get. But it's way better than being trapped in the middle of the ocean.

"Hey, bro." Percy wrapped his arms around both Grover and Tyson. "If I'm gonna be related to someone, I'm glad it's Tyson and you count, Grover."

Percy didn't think of Annabeth as a sister, actually. Grover could most definitely pass as his brother. But Annabeth as his sister is... weird.

"I'll cuddle with my imaginary siblings." Annabeth muttered.

Percy forgot that Annabeth had a tough home life. Her mom left and her dad married an abusive mother with siblings that won't even talk to her.

That's gotta be rough. Percy lived with an abusive stepdad and he still couldn't comprehend how Annabeth could cope with her life.

"Guys, look." Tyson pointed to shore not too far away. "Do we really want to go to shore? Do we really want to trust mysterious land?"

"Yes we do." Annabeth started to row to shore. She started squinting (Percy swears she needs glasses) and finally sees what it is.

"In case you didn't know, Chiron was blamed for Thalia. He got fired but I think I figured out where he went." Annabeth smiled and pointed.

"Is that-" Grover started clapping.

"Chiron." Clarisse finished once the canoe was fully to shore.

"You guys made it back to camp." Chiron motioned around. "Good job, I'll take the mirakuro and start healing Thalia. She's barley alive."

"No." Annabeth shook her head. "She's not going to be dead. This mirakuro is going to save her. She's going to live and she's going to wake up."

"Annabeth," Percy put a hand on her shoulder. "As much as I want my cousin to wake up how do we know that this drug won't negatively impact her?"

"He's right." Grover looked away. "We know that the mirakuro could possibly kill her if she doesn't react right. This is a huge risk."

"She's not any better right now anyways." Clarisse had admitted the hard truth that nobody else wanted to say. She said what was true though.

"Any new people while I've been away?" Grover asked. He looked really anxious to change the topic. Can't really blame the poor guy.

Grover had to pretend to be a girl and has seen one of his closest friends fall into a coma. He had to help Annabeth cope through everything while grieving himself.

Anybody who says Grover isn't one of the bravest people that they've ever met has said literally everything wrong. Everything they just said is wrong in the words of Luke Skywalker.

"Do you guys really want to take the risk of potentially killing Thalia with the mirakuro or do we leave her alone?" Chiron asked, holding the syringe up.

"She's gonna die either way." Annabeth didn't meet anybody's eyes.

"And if we use the mirakuro, there's still that small chance of her actually surviving." Percy nodded. "So I say we use the mirakuro."

"Let's inject the most badass person weve ever seen with a miracle drug and hope she survives." Clarisse was the kind of person to be sarcastic when scared.

"We're doing exactly that so we can possibly save her life. We don't really know what's going to happen." Tyson mumbled but loud enough for her to hear.

"I'll be back." Chiron left, syringe in hand. He was on his way to go put the drug into Thalia. In the next hour or two Thalia was either going to be dead or alive.

"Oh my god." Annabeth put her head in her hands when Chiron walked away. "If we went through all of that for her to just die now I will scream."

"To take your mind off of depressing things," Grover put an arm around Percy and Annabeth. "Let's go to camp and see what we've missed."

"Don't think much." Annabeth sort of scoffed.

"Guys." Malcolm, Annabeth's half sibling on a complicated level ran up to the trio. "You guys missed much."

"Seriously what the hell?" Annabeth's grey eyes almsot popped out of her sockets.

Wait, trio? Where did Clarisse and Tyson...

"What did we miss?" Grover asked.

"We have two new kids here and I'm pretty sure that you're gonna want to pay close attention to them." Malcolm made a point by motioning to the cabins.

"Who are the two new campers?" Percy asked, almost afraid of the answer he's going to get. 

"Bianca and Nico di Angelo."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look it's 4 am I can't explain it either and I put way too many references to stuff here 
> 
> song inspiration: tropical oceans by dd dumbo
> 
> I'm going to sleep now bye

**Author's Note:**

> AHH! 
> 
> I love writing this. It was really fun to make everything mortal. I'm going to continue doing this for all five books. 
> 
> Follow me on Tumblr - hispanic-annabeth
> 
> :)


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